by R. M. Olson
Get up. She could get up. Of course she could get up. What kind of a lightweight did they think she was?
The biggest problem with a broken jaw was that it seriously impeded her ability to swear. And getting her bruised body to its feet in the prison cell was an event that demanded swearing, and yelling, and probably some mild-to-moderate blasphemy. But somehow she managed, and stood, bracing herself against the wall, the world swimming around her.
OK, so the floor wasn’t going to stand still. That was alright. She’d been drunk plenty of times. She could do this.
She held onto the wall with her good arm, and made her wobbly way over to the cell door.
The guard had thoughtfully closed and locked it when he left.
Damn.
Now she’d find out if this had been worth it.
Painfully, she rested her shoulder against the wall. Her hand holding the chip was shaking.
This had to work.
She hadn’t prayed in years. She hadn’t prayed since her parents had kicked her out of their house when she was fourteen, and she sure as hell hadn’t meant it for years before that.
But, she supposed, if there was a time she could use a prayer, this would be it.
“Lady,” she mumbled, clutching the chip in her shaking fingers. “If you’re up there—” she swallowed blood. “You plaguing well owe me one, you bastard.”
On reflection, maybe it wasn’t the best prayer, as prayers went. But it sure as hell was sincere.
She lifted the chip to the lock.
The lock clicked, and the door swung gently open.
She sagged against the wall in relief, her vision dancing with pain.
She’d done it. She was out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
TAE, SECTOR 2, Day 12
Tae wondered, in a small corner of his brain, how long it would take him to wear a groove in the floor of his cell. Surely he should have by now.
Where was Jez?
She’d sounded like hell. She’d sounded like she was on the verge of passing out.
Why had they all agreed to this plan?
Of course. Because it was the only damn plan they had.
He shook his head in frustration, and went back to pacing.
She had to be OK. She had to be. She was the most irritating, annoying, frustrating person he’d ever met in his life, she was constantly getting on his nerves, she seemed to know exactly what to do to make an already unbearable situation worse, and he knew, with absolute clarity, that if anything happened to her he would never get over it.
This must be what having siblings was like.
Masha was seated on her cot, head dropped in her hands, her posture one of contained exhaustion. She raised her head to look up at him.
“She’ll be fine,” she said. Even he could hear the worry under her tone.
He swore violently under his breath.
She shouldn’t have run into any guards. Surely Zhurov would have made sure there was no one else on the floor when he beat her.
Still—
He ran his hands over his face and swore again, louder this time.
He almost didn’t hear the click of the lock. And then the movement of the door swinging open made him start in surprise.
“Hey tech-head.”
He jerked the door open and stood for a moment, staring. Jez swayed in the doorway, then slowly toppled forward. He caught her before she could fall. “Masha,” he called through gritted teeth. “Get over here.”
“‘M fine,” Jez mumbled. “Don’t need Masha.”
She was clearly not fine.
Masha was across to them in two strides, and when she saw Jez, her face went grim.
“I don’t have a first aid kit.”
“Don’t need—kit,” Jez mumbled. “Get the damn doors—” her voice trailed off.
Tae cursed. “Masha, I need help.”
Masha had already crossed to Jez’s other side, and gently lifted the pilot’s unbroken arm over her shoulder. Jez whimpered softly, and somehow that sound scared him more than anything else so far.
“Hang on, Jez,” he said. “Just hang on. We’ll get you out of here.”
“Thought—I was the one—got you out.”
He rolled his eyes reflexively. “Fine. Just give me the key.” He reached down and took the bloodstained chip from her trembling hand.
Damn. Damn, damn, damn. His own hands were shaking.
“Jez. I’ve got something for the pain,” Masha was saying in a low voice. “Can you swallow? Come on Jez.”
He wiped the blood off as best he could and slipped it into his com. He pulled up the holoscreen, and let out a quick breath of relief.
He was in. They had their lock-pick back.
It took him only minutes to set the key into his com, and to send it out to the others.
“Lev, Ysbel,” he whispered. “We’re in. Key on your com. Meet us at the library. This key should open the connecting door.”
“How’s Jez?” came Lev’s voice immediately.
“She’s—” He glanced over at the pilot, who was sagging against Masha, somehow managing to swear without moving her mouth. Even looking at her made him feel sick to his stomach. “She’s—not good.”
To be honest, he wasn’t quite sure how she was upright and conscious.
“Can we leave her in the cell? Lock her in?”
“No,” said Tae firmly. “She’ll be killed. Do you know how many people in this prison would love to settle old grievances with her if she’s helpless? And if that guard sees her—”
He glanced at Jez again, and tightened his lips. He was going to have a score to settle with Zhurov if he saw him again.
“Alright. We’ll bring her along then,” said Lev, and the tone in his voice told Tae that Lev’s thoughts were traveling down paths similar to his own. “We’ll see you shortly.”
He slapped his com off and turned back to Masha and Jez. He bit back the sick rising in his throat and gently put his arm around the pilot, trying not to bump her broken arm.
“Jez? Can you walk? We have to go.”
“Yeah,” she mumbled. “‘M fine.”
She sounded about half-conscious.
He glanced over at Masha, who gave him a worried glance in return. Then, supporting Jez on either side, they made their slow way towards the library.
They’d just damn well better not run into any guards, that was all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
YSBEL, DAY 12
Ysbel’s hands were shaking again.
This was a terrible habit. Trembling hands could get her killed.
But she couldn’t seem to stop them.
She’d watched Tanya and her children die in front of her once, five and a half years ago. And then she’d watched it a second time, her wife and children dragged off to a horrible death as she lay helpless and bound on the floor.
She’d thought it would kill her.
She’d wished it would kill her.
And now she was free. She hefted the dummy pin-gun in her hand.
They would wish they had never laid a hand on Tanya. More than that. They’d wish they’d never heard Tanya’s name.
Ahead of her, Lev walked swiftly down the corridor, glancing around for any sign of guards. Even in the dimly-lit hallway she could see the tension in his posture.
That stupid, wonderful pilot.
She’d sounded bad. And Tae had sounded sick.
Ysbel shook her head slightly, something between guilt and gratitude tightening her chest.
It didn’t matter what Jez did from now on. It didn’t matter how much she talked, or how many terrible jokes she made, or that she could never sit still not even for one single second.
Ysbel owed her a debt she could never repay.
They’d get Tanya and the children. And then they’d take down the prison.
She was slightly surprised at how glad the thought made her. She hadn’t been lying, back there in her cell. Somehow, in the two weeks
she’d spent here, she’d discovered that she did care about the fact that there were these crazy, soft political prisoners locked away in some hole at the end of the system, trapped in a system of bribery and political favours and death to those who didn’t matter.
She stepped through the library door after Lev, tightening her grip on the dummy gun.
“We’re here,” Lev whispered into his com, his voice strained.
“Open the connecting door,” Tae grunted, and Ysbel stepped past Lev and held her com to the lock. It clicked, and she pulled the door open.
Tae and Masha stood there, both liberally smeared with blood, and supporting a half-conscious Jez between them.
Ysbel bit back a curse.
She’d seen a lot of injuries in her day. You couldn’t work with explosives and not see injuries. But this was different. There was something sick and deliberate about Jez’s injuries, the bruise-coloured fist-marks on her face, the way her arm was broken, like it had been twisted until the guard could hear it splinter, the blood clotting and hardening down her face.
She glanced at Lev.
His face had gone completely bloodless.
She’d never seen him furious before. She’d seen him irritated, yes, angry—but this was something different. There was a cold, hard rage in his expression that almost made her take a step back.
“How is she, Masha?” he asked through white lips.
Masha shook her head. “I can’t tell, not without a kit. I gave her something for the pain, which isn’t going to help how coherent she is.”
Jez raised her head. “‘M fine. Told you that.”
One of her eyes was swollen completely shut, and both lips were split, but she somehow managed something that almost looked like a smirk. Then her eyes went unfocused, and she slumped against Masha.
“Come on, Jez,” Masha said in her steady voice. “We have to keep going.”
“We can’t let her rest somewhere?” asked Lev in a strained voice. Tae shook his head helplessly.
“Where? Where can we leave her where we’ll be sure she’s safe, and we’ll be sure we’ll be able to come back for her?”
Jez managed to raise her head again. “Can’t plaguing—rid of me that easy,” she slurred.
Lev gave a tight shake of his head. “Alright then. We don’t have time to lose. Let’s go.”
“Let me,” said Ysbel, stepping in front of him.
She patted the butt of the dummy gun grimly.
This was just one more score she had to settle with these prison guards. And the thing was, she was good at settling scores.
They met the first guard a few steps down the hallway. He took one look at their grim faces and Ysbel’s weapon and went for his gun.
“I wouldn’t.”
At the tone in Lev’s voice, the man hesitated.
“Of course,” Lev continued. “I’d love to have an excuse to hurt you right now.”
There was something frighteningly cold in his voice, and Ysbel glanced at him with new respect.
Slowly, the guard raised his hands.
She’d imagined, when she planned this out, that the gun would have to frighten the guards. Apparently, Lev in this mood was all she needed.
“Hands on the wall,” Ysbel grunted. The guard complied. She disarmed him quickly and efficiently, cuffed him with the cuffs on his own belt, and pulled off his com, dropping it on the floor and crushing it beneath her boot. She glanced around, her eyes coming to rest on a supply cupboard.
“Just shoot him,” said Lev, voice slightly distant, as if he’d already grown bored of this entertainment.
“I’d like to save my ammunition, I think,” she said, gesturing inside the cupboard with the barrel of the dummy gun.
The guard obeyed, with remarkable alacrity.
She closed the door behind him, then brought the makeshift gun butt down on the handle. The thin metal twisted and buckled under the pressure, and she smiled grimly to herself.
They met the second and third guard around the next corner, and left them locked in a bathroom. They seemed relieved to have a locked door between them and Lev. The fourth, fifth, and sixth she brought along, cuffed together in a chain.
Wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a bit of a human shield.
“Next passageway to your right, then up the stairway. If they’re holding them for the sedation machine, that’s where they’ll be,” said Lev, in that cold, emotionless voice. She cast a glance back over her shoulder.
This version of Lev was one she would not want to get on the wrong side of.
She shoved the three guards ahead of them down the hallway in an awkward half-waddle, prodding them with the barrel of her gun whenever they tried to slow down.
“If you need a break, Ysbel, kill them,” said Lev from behind her, just loud enough that the guards could hear. “I’m sure we’ll find more.”
They sped up noticeably.
“You could just shoot them in the leg,” he continued, almost conversationally. “The shock of the burn would likely kill them eventually, but you could get them to keep going for as long as we need them to.”
They sped up more.
They met another guard on the stairs, who took one look at them and tried to run. Ysbel pointed her dummy weapon, and he halted dead.
On Lev’s suggestion, she left him handcuffed around the door, laying on the floor, his body bent awkwardly with his hands on one side and his legs on the other, and the cuffs connecting them through the hinges. It was a surprisingly practical and effective solution, except for the fact that any person in their right mind wouldn’t have thought of it. It required a certain capacity to view the human body as having the potential for much more malleability than it at first appeared.
She smiled tightly to herself. Perhaps she could get used to this new Lev.
Behind her, Jez mumbled something incoherent as she stumbled up the steps, and Lev’s face grew more frightening.
Then again, perhaps not.
Then they were in the passageway, and at the end of it was a door.
Ysbel’s breath was coming fast and shallow, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might break her ribs.
But this time, her hands were completely steady.
There were guards in the hallway, three of them, and they turned quickly as the prisoners and their hostages burst out of the stairwell. Ysbel shoved the three handcuffed guards ahead of them, their bodies forming a rather effective shield, and the guards by the door, their weapons half-way drawn, hesitated.
“I could shoot them,” said Ysbel conversationally, “or I could shoot you from between their shoulders, so that you’d shoot them while trying to protect yourselves. But you won’t know which I’ll choose unless you finish drawing your weapons. So,” she gestured pleasantly with her mock gun. “Go ahead.”
“Please, do,” said Lev, something deadly in his voice.
The guards looked at one another, and then back at the five of them and their hostages.
Then, slowly, first one, then another, placed the weapons in their hands gently on the ground and stepped away from them.
“Wise move,” said Ysbel. Lev stepped around her and kicked the guns out of the way, then cuffed the guards’ hands behind their backs with more force than was strictly necessary, and pulled off their coms.
Once the guards had been dealt with, he paused for a moment, propping his arm against the wall and leaning his head against it. He took a long breath, then another. Then he turned, and even in the state he was in he managed to give her a slight smile.
“Well, Ysbel?” he asked quietly. “Are you ready to see your wife?”
She wasn’t sure she could breath. She wasn’t sure if her heart would be able to keep beating. She wasn’t sure if it would even matter.
She gave a slight nod.
“Aright,” he said. “I’m going to unlock the door and step back. I don’t know what’s in there, so shove the guards in first. There are enough of them they’ll
take most of the fire, I imagine.”
The calm calculation in his voice was somehow even more frightening than his earlier anger.
She met his eyes. He held his com up to the door, and the lock clicked. Then he kicked it inward and stepped back.
It was almost embarrassing how quickly the guards inside dropped their weapons and allowed themselves to be handcuffed.
And there, on the other side of the room, a small cell with walls that were transparent reflective glass. And inside them, a slender woman with short brown hair, arms around two children, who had their heads buried in her lap.
For the first time in her life, Ysbel thought she might faint.
She was aware, distantly, of Lev shoving the guards into their seats and cuffing them, of Masha, spattered with blood, disentangling herself from Jez for long enough to come take the gun from Ysbel’s nerveless hand.
“Go on,” Masha whispered.
Ysbel stepped forward, feeling like she was walking in a dream. She held her com up to the door, and as the lock clicked, Tanya looked up for the first time, reflexively pushing the children behind her. Her face was tear streaked and set. Then she saw who it was standing there, and her eyes widened.
“Tanya,” Ysbel whispered. Her voice didn’t seem to be working properly. “Olya. Misko. Hello, my loves.”
Slowly, Tanya stood. She took two steps forward, as if in a daze, and reached out her hand.
“Ysbel?” she whispered.
And for the first time in five and a half years, Ysbel pulled her wife into her arms, clutching her so tightly she wasn’t sure if her arms would be able to let go.
Tanya dropped her head against Ysbel’s shoulder, and Ysbel clung to her. Her arms were shaking, and she could hardly see through the tears in her eyes. For the first time since that awful day five and a half years ago, she felt whole.
She heard dimly, in the background, alarms blaring, voices shouting over the prison coms.
Then Lev stepped into the room.
“Ysbel. Tanya,” he said grimly. “Looks like our time is up. We’d better go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
LEV, DAY 12
Lev stepped back into the guard’s room, glancing around quickly. Masha was covering the door with their fake weapon, and Tae, face grim, was holding Jez upright.
