by Gorman, K.
“That’s old. It’s Nuenbar, Filbrook, and Erling now. They’re trying to sort by district, but…” Legan shook his head, then, probably realizing what he’d just said, backtracked. “Of course, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones. Lots of people haven’t been caught yet. Plenty of people getting little strongholds and neighborhood watches organized. And you’ve managed to survive so far. If your people are anything like you…”
The sound of marching boots came back up the corridor, and Legan’s head jerked their way, acknowledging the private’s nod before he’d even had a chance to get it in. “All clear, boys? Good. Let’s go. Another minute, another ship.”
The men marched right by without a word. If they’d had any opinions about their commanding officer’s change of mood, the obvious lack of sleep on their faces did well to stifle it.
Legan followed them with a tip of his head. “Well, good luck.”
Soo-jin waved them off. “You, as well.”
Then, they were gone.
The door on the other side of the air bridge shut behind them.
In the sudden silence, Marc quirked an eyebrow. Then he leaned forward and slapped the door sensors. The inner door hissed. A second later, they heard the clang of the outer door lock tight.
“He looks like he’s had a day,” Soo-jin said.
Marc shook his head. “Too bad he didn’t stay. Would have been nice to get intel on what’s happening below. You can only get so much from feeds.”
A mechanical whir sounded beyond the door, only to be muted by a quick hiss of air as the vacuum took the air bridge. Vibration rumbled underfoot as the bridge retracted back into the hull. The light at the side of the door switched to blue once it had finished.
The main computer in the bridge chimed.
Marc looked up. “At least he’s quick on the permission ticket. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 22
The city of Bau glimmered in the viewscreen, lush, effervescent, and put in a golden haze by the light fog and the sunset. The Nemina came in on what Karin termed the ‘postcard approach’ to the city. Thick forest flashed by underneath, the individual trees growing larger and more distinct as they sped down through atmo and hugged the lower altitudes. With the sea behind it, glittering in the sun, Bau’s waterfront was thrown into a half-silhouette. It wasn’t large—not by Core standards, at least—but it was a planet capital. Quite a lot of money had been spent to ensure it looked the part. Air drag rocked them around, making the view in front of them shift as she adjusted course.
The tones of several comm links, hers included, rang in the bridge, slightly out of sync.
After a few minutes, Soo-jin threw her netlink down in disgust. “Satellites are probably tied. Same with the towers, I’d expect. Too much traffic.”
“A landline might fix that,” Karin said. “Should be less traffic, anyway.”
“Unless the entire city’s decided to throw a Moon Sailor marathon, then yes.” Soo-jin curled her lip and flexed her fingers in frustration. “Too bad we’re not grounded.”
The parking grid, at least, was not affected. As Karin approached, the city’s automated system pinged back her request and found her a spot in Sulsagana, the city’s south district. Marc, hearing the notification, leaned in.
“Good thing they finished the Sky Line last year. Easy way to the center.” He straightened and looked down at his netlink, which was still ringing. After a few seconds, he sighed and cut the call. “Guess we’re doing this the old-fashioned way. Soo, do you mind taking Ethan into Central? Karin and I are headed to East Igalina, and I know you—”
“Yeah, yeah.” Soo-jin waved a hand. “I wanted to check in with a few people in Ninisinna, anyway, before I headed up. It’ll probably take a few hours to hike up to Songbird, but something tells me he won’t mind the trip.”
She lifted a questioning eyebrow and directed her gaze across the room.
Ethan, leaning against the far wall, gave her a small nod. “I don’t mind.”
“I don’t think any of us actually mind getting off this boat.” Marc reached over and patted the dashboard in front of the co-pilot’s chair he was leaning against. “No offense, girl, but you’re small.”
“She doesn’t mind, Captain,” Soo-jin said. “She’s a machine.”
“Shh. Don’t rain on my anthropomorphism. We’ve been through a lot, she and I.”
“You bought her two years ago, and she spent the first one in land dock being fed inferior machinery.”
“I clinked a lot of beers off her port in that time, I’ll have you know.”
The bridge went dead silent. For the first time, Karin took her eyes off the front screen and slanted them to the side, where she could just barely make out Marc’s form beside her.
“Hell,” Marc said. “I’m not going to live that quote down, am I?”
“Marc Jones, Sol Year 5034.” Soo-jin giggled. “Must have been real lonely, just the two of you. Did you—”
“Shut up,” he said. “Karin, can you make this thing go any faster?”
“Thing?” Soo-jin barked a laugh. “What happened to your anthropomorphous vision? Burst your own bubble, did you? Can’t keep it up—”
“Shut up. I’m going to check something important that I’m sure needs my attention—”
“—Not Nemina’s port, by any chance?” Soo-jin giggled.
“—I’ll see you all when the laughter’s calmed down.”
Karin watched him go, then settled back into her seat. She returned her gaze out the window, putting a slight course correction in as they veered too far right. Trees and forest sped beneath and to the sides, rising up the low slopes of the mountains that prickled up from the map.
Ahead of them, the city, clouded by a slight haze, had a dusky tint to it. As it grew closer, her worries returned.
They churned in her stomach like old, heavy lead.
*
The train that picked them up was empty, as were the next two she and Marc transferred to. As she looked out the windows and searched the sky, little threads of worry rose through her gut like snakes.
The city looked dead.
Marc stood beside her, swaying as the train rocked back and forth on its track. Sunlight flinched and flickered across him, lighting the rich tone in his skin far better than any of the shipboard bulbs could. He ignored her, one hand clutched loosely to the train’s hanging grab straps, the other cradling his netlink.
Its tone blooped through the empty car, the only sound except for the occasional clunk and shriek of the wheels.
She wasn’t sure why he was here—well, she was. They both needed this train to get into Eastside—but, by the comments he’d made, it had become clear that he intended to accompany her.
Why? She glanced to the blaster at his side. To protect her? Make sure she didn’t get taken by Shadows?
She shook her head, rubbing at her eyes. A part of her was glad for the company. Who wouldn’t be, given what the Shadows could do?
But the rest of her wanted to circle her wagons, keep to herself, and find her sister.
Nomiki would know what to do. She always did. Hell, even dream-Nomiki had seemed to know more about the Shadows than Karin did.
She almost rolled her eyes at the thought. Dream Nomiki didn’t exist. Dreams were just flights of the brain’s fancy. Half stress and information processing, half an attempt to communicate something in the subconscious that the waking part of her brain either couldn’t or didn’t process.
If dream-Nomiki seemed to know more about the Shadows, it was only because dream-Karin thought she did.
But, if dreams really were just random fantastic images, then why did everyone have the same dream that night? Even Hopper, Senton, and Ethan, who’d had no connection with Karin and, probably, had never even been in the same system as those stone ruins?
She blew out a noisy breath and pulled her head back, eyes wandering across the advertisements.
Maybe Nom
iki did know something.
Marc lifted his head at the noise. “You okay?”
“About as okay as I can be, I guess.” She returned her head to a more normal position and gave his netlink a glance. The tone still blooped through the car. He’d renewed the call a few minutes ago. “Still no luck?”
“I think Soo-jin might be right about the comms. I’m not even getting his voicemail.” He sighed, shook his head, and then pocketed the netlink. The tone cut off abruptly. “We’re getting off at Estbrook, right?”
That ‘we’ thing again. She hesitated, then gave him a quick nod. “You don’t mind going for Nomiki first?”
“No. Plus it’ll be good for you to have a second, in case she’s Lost.” He gave her a grim smile. “Soo-jin put up a bit of a fight while you were... extracting it.”
She swallowed hard. Nomiki was, by and far, no pushover. If she were one of the Lost, they could have an even bigger fight on their hands—and if anyone proved an anomaly to the Lost's normal docility, it would be her. She glanced down toward his blaster. “That has a stun setting, right?”
His eyebrows twitched in surprise, then frowned. “Yes—why? Do you think we’ll need it?”
She hesitated. “Nomiki is… special. Better to stun her first and ask questions after.”
“Is she… like you?”
“Yes and no.” Her gaze swung up as she hesitated again, the resistance holding her tongue for a few seconds. “She’s different.”
“No light?”
“No. Definitely not.”
That had been her gift. Nomiki’s talents had lain in a distinctly different direction. She shivered. Her sister’s talents had played a large part in their escape. Where Karin had hesitated, Nomiki had left hallways of fresh bodies in her wake.
They were also part of the reason she thought Nomiki was still alive and un-Lost.
Except that her sister lived alone. If they’d caught her unaware, asleep, as they’d caught the rest of humanity…
“Karin?” Marc’s attention hadn’t left her. Like with his skin, the sunset tinted his eyes a brighter shade, bringing out the color and definition in his irises. “Is there something I need to know?”
She shook her head. She’d spent enough time worrying about that over the past week. Now was not the time to let her worries reach a crescendo. “It’s better to just stun her first, just in case. She’s… Well, her special power is violence.”
Several seconds passed in silence. Marc watched her, an incredulous expression spreading across his face as he processed. His eyebrows arched toward her. “And you were planning to see her alone?”
She gave him a shrug as the train rounded a smooth corner, pulling her grip tight against the strap and shifting the light across the car. “Her eyes are light green, so it’ll be easy to notice if they’ve changed. I thought I could just hit her from across the room.”
“What if she was at the door?”
“Then… I’d run?” She flashed him a sheepish grin.
He rolled his eyes, muttering something under his breath as looked back out the windows. “Good thing I’m coming along, then.”
Ten minutes later, they stepped off the station at Estbrook and out into the sun.
The place was dead quiet.
It had never been a hopping part of the city to begin with. Estbrook was residential, with the shops and streets aligned as such. Old, single-family homes crammed against each other on the streets closest to the station, their concrete façades weathered from the mid-tropic climate. Bau wasn’t exactly hot—they’d landed in its winter cycle, after all—but neither was it cold. Karin’s light jacket, and a thin pair of stretch-jeans, were all she needed to keep the windchill out.
Still, she shivered.
It should not be this empty.
A ground transport lot stretched out between the station entrance and the houses, overshadowed by the station and the few pedestrian walkways jutting away toward the massive skydorms that sat several blocks out to the left. Only a few vehicles sat in the lot—and, by the way most of them were scattered across the empty area, away from the station entrance, she suspected they’d been there a while.
Probably night-shifters on their way in. The lot would have been full, then. And then, they hadn’t come back.
Her boots ground into the old concrete as she paused, surveying the area.
Marc nudged her shoulder. “Look—the doors. What’s on them?”
She followed his pointing finger back to the houses. They were low buildings, left over from city expansion. Probably some of the second-wave pensioners living off the checks they’d earned in the Border Wars, given the buildings’ apparent age. Chain-link fences peeled and warped around a couple of front yards, hemming in tiny patches of yellowing grass. A newer fence stood at the end of the block, straight and still shining with a dull, brushed gleam. A white sign gleamed next to its gate, its letters indistinct, but her jaw tensed as she spotted the dog house beside it.
Oh, Suns, what had happened to all of the animals?
She took a sharp breath and looked away. That was not a thing she wanted to think of. Swallowing back a sudden churn in her stomach, she forced herself to re-focus on where Marc was pointing.
Red tape fluttered on a door halfway up the block, marking a thick ‘X’ across its surface. A notice had been stuck to the middle, just above where the tape intersected.
“Government?” she asked, glancing around. Now that she’d noticed one, she saw the others—lots of them, criss-crossed over the doors of well over half the block.
“Might make it easier to deal with your sister, if they’ve gotten to her already.” Marc surveyed the streets. “Which way?”
“Here.” She struck out across the lot, angling to the left. This hadn’t been her first time to Nomiki’s.
She hoped to hell it wouldn’t be her last, either.
Chapter 23
Nomiki lived down a small street several blocks into the neighborhood. It wasn’t quaint, not like the station-front houses had been, but it did have a kind of charm to it. On one side, the skydorms towered up, huge, silent behemoths full of tiny, cramped micro-units; on the other, low apartments, town-homes, and single-family houses speckled the boulevard with varying roof lines. It gave the area an eclectic feel, with all the different façades coming together. Not quite so stripped and uniform as some of the city’s other neighborhoods.
Karin’s stomach did a small flip as she caught sight of Nomiki’s apartment.
It wasn’t large, nor was it modern. A vintage keypad rested next to a pair of glass doors that flashed in the late-afternoon sun. A board to the side listed all the names, along with buzzer numbers to call. She reached up, found the number, and pressed it hard.
Marc quirked a brow at the name. “J. Santos? She married?”
“No. Never had it changed.” She glanced at it. Nomiki had probably paid to not have it changed. Like Karin, she favored anonymity.
She re-checked the number and then pressed it again, harder this time. As if it would make a difference.
Again, no answer. Her body went cold with fear.
“Try the manager.” Marc pointed to a name on the signboard.
She did.
A gruff, hoarse voice answered on the second ring. “Beckindale Apartments.”
She leaned into the intercom. “Hi, I’m looking for my sister. Nomiki Makos, apartment 307?”
“Ain’t seen her.” The speaker crackled. “She expecting you?”
“No—I just. Well, I haven’t heard from her. Wanted to check, considering…”
“Ah. Yes.” The man—Edson Markle, going by the sign—cleared his throat, suddenly more attentive. “You said you were her sister?”
“Yes. Karin Makos.”
He paused. His breath sounded through the speaker, along with the occasional mutter, as if he were counting under his breath. “She doesn’t have you listed as a contact.”
“I don’t live in the city.
” She paused, glanced at Marc. “My ship doesn’t come by much. Hard to contact.”
He paused again, as if considering. Then he sighed. “All right, I think I can make an exception in this case… Give me a minute. I’ll meet you in the lobby with the codes.”
Edson, as she’d suspected by his name and the roughness of his voice, was an aging gentleman—maybe even one of the Border veterans. He moved with a limp, appearing from a door in the far corner of the lobby with an older generation netlink open in his hand and a few small slips of paper. She almost expected him to have a set of keys dangling at his side, like out of an old movie.
She resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow as she spied a series of penciled-in numbers on one of the papers. If they’d truly been robbers, he wouldn’t have been able to do much of anything once he’d entered the lobby with Nomiki’s codes.
He paused as he spotted Marc’s blaster, then gave a grim nod. “I guess it is time for those again, isn’t it? What with everything going on.” He shook his head. “I’ve kept mine close, too, since…”
“I’m just glad the normal methods work on them.” Marc grunted. “Makes it a bit easier.”
“Yes. Unnatural, isn’t it?” He shook his head again, then made a step toward the stairs. “Come on. Up this way.”
They followed him up.
She could see why Nomiki had chosen the place. With its simple tiled floor and the open concrete halls, the place fit into her sister's practical aesthetics like ice in snow—and it was open, too. Beyond the first level, the apartment buckled into an open corridor with windows cut straight through the concrete to overlook an inner courtyard. Blue sky peeked through between apartments. When Karin snuck a look over the edge, she saw the ground rife with plants.
“She’s not actually on the third floor,” Edson explained as they came to the first landing and he led them down the hall. “Our building’s multilevel, more like a jigsaw than the up and down normal types.”
Karin ducked under the fronds of a palm that leaned over the next walkway and jogged a few steps to catch up with Edson. “When did you last see her?”
