Zion starts laughing. "I'm not the kid anymore who taped you to the hospital bed when you were napping between shifts. I can stitch you up. Let's go."
I grin at the memory. We were always playing practical jokes on each other. Mom wasn't too happy at all the tape he wasted, but I thought it was funny. Until I had to go to the bathroom. Then I yelled at him until he cut me free.
I hold up a hand. "Wait. You can stitch me up?"
Zion nods, a small smile on his lips. He starts down the next ladder. As he brushes past me he whispers, "There's a lot I still need to tell you when we get somewhere safe."
I frown, hoping that we can actually find somewhere safe. We descend one more level of metal ladders and crawl out the maintenance hatch to an empty corridor. This level is the research level. Mom would spend a lot of time down here, I thought trying to find better ways to treat the miners. But after the last few months I now wonder if this is where the AI tech started.
The whole floor is deserted. My shoulders sag as I realize the pirates either have already been here or everyone left for someplace safer. Probably back up to the domes.
Zion leads me to one of the research labs and we walk through rooms that look like they were emptied not too long ago. Consoles are still on, personal items are still sitting next to each one, and a few machines are beeping a warning that the experiments inside are finished. I shiver as I automatically open the locked office at the far end of the room without even thinking about what I'm doing. I close my eyes and take a deep breath as the door opens for my palm print.
"Are you all right with this? It's the safest place for us right now," Zion says quietly next to me.
I open my eyes. "I'll be fine."
His forehead wrinkles as he watches my face.
I turn toward Derek who is stiff and frowning. "Derek this is my mom's office. She had extra security added. Probably by Red because I don't think she trusted anyone else." I shrug and walk in.
It's pretty much exactly as I left it. I can still smell her familiar scent as I run my hand across the books on the shelves. I hear Zion engage all the locks and safeties on the door. I feel safe in here, even without all the precautions. This is where I would sprawl on the floor doing my homework as Mom sat hunched over the console embedded into her wide desk in the middle of the room.
"You didn't pack this room up," I say, my voice cracking, my gaze anywhere but at the two others in the room.
"It was hard enough packing up your apartment. There was no need to pack the office." Zion says quietly. "No one could follow your mom's research."
I grit my teeth so I don't cry. "I'm sorry." I feel both Derek and Zion fidget as I lean against the bookshelves.
Zion is studying me when I finally turn to face him. "Stop staring at me, Z." I try to sound forceful, but it just comes out sounding whiny.
"Sorry. I just thought I'd never see you again." His grin is genuine and familiar and comforting all at once.
I meet his dark eyes, a whole childhood of memories resting there. "I know. I'm sorry I left the way I did."
His smile fades. "You mean without saying goodbye."
I glance sideways at Derek who is right next to me and still glaring at Zion.
"Yes, that. I was just in a really bad place."
"I understand, B. But you could've returned my vid calls."
I swallow as my heart warms at the familiar nickname. "Yes, I could've." I turn my head toward Derek, who meets my gaze. "I was having some adjustment issues on Delta and didn't want to bother you with my problems."
Derek looks away, his expression stiff.
"Besides you were grieving too," I add as I push off from the shelves and face Zion.
"Yes, but we always got through everything together. And then you were just gone."
"But I'm here now. Not under the greatest circumstances, but I'm still here. Derek and I," I motion to Derek who glances back up, his expression dark, "are here for the investigation, but now that we've reconnected we can stay in touch. Right, Z?"
Zion's expression softens. "You know I can never stay mad at you." He extends his right arm and I lay my arm over his, dark skin on dark skin, our hands clasped at the elbows. A miner's family greeting.
I grin and grab him in for a hug, despite Derek's jealousy radiating throughout the small room. I finally let go and try to push him off balance, but he's too solid now. He just shows me his super-white toothy grin.
"Good. Now that we have that out of the way," I say, "there's one more thing I need to get straight."
It's bad enough we have no idea what horrors await us today; I'm not going to put up with Derek's issues with Zion.
I step close to Derek, toe to toe. "Derek, you need to relax. Zion and I are just friends, the best of friends," I look over my shoulder and grin at Zion who looks like he's about to burst into laughter, "but we've only ever been friends. So you have nothing to worry about." I watch as Derek's grim gaze leaves Zion and comes to rest on me. There's still doubt and hesitation in his eyes. I study his solid jawline and the intelligent hazel eyes surrounded by thick eyelashes. I sigh at the beauty of him.
Zion is ruggedly handsome with long dark, kinky curls like mine, except his make perfect ringlets. I was always jealous of those when we were growing up. My hair takes a lot of work to tame. But there was never anything other than friendship between us. No matter how much time we spent alone. Zion is the brother my mother adopted into our lives after his parents died working in the mines.
I catch Derek's gaze and lean in to pin him with a hard kiss. He's taken by surprise, but finally wraps his arms around me and kisses back.
"All right you two, we need to figure out what we're going to do before we have company." Zion's still laughing as he hauls open one of the storage shelves behind Mom's desk.
I open my eyes and pull away slightly. Derek places his forehead on mine, a familiar gesture between us.
"We're good?" I whisper.
"Yes. Lo siento. I'm sorry."
"We've gone through a lot together the last year. Don't doubt us." I place my hands on either side of his face and kiss him again. I step back and see that his shoulders are less tense and the lines between his eyes have smoothed out.
Zion has pulled out my mom's medical bag. Every tear and scuff is happily familiar and heartbreaking at the same time. There were many days we would be called down in the mines, Mom just having enough time to grab this bag and then we were off to the lifts.
"You know your dad kept in touch with us." Zion looks sideways at me as he pulls out gauze and the stitching kit.
"He did?" I almost stumble as I cross the room. "No I didn't know. And who is we?"
"Dr. Todd and I. Your dad wanted to make sure the new coroner could do the job as well as your mom. Sometimes I was in on the discussion."
"Wait." I pull on Zion's arm and spin him around to face me. "Explain. Why would you be on medical discussions if you were working toward being supervisor of the digging Op." I point downward.
Zion shrugs, his white scrubs moving smoothly with his lean body as he unpacks the med kit. "After you left I started taking med classes. That way I'd have more than one option here. And it kept me busy."
"Zion you know you don't need to be stuck here. You're smart, you could go anywhere." He looks back at me, a small smile on his face as he deftly threads a sterile needle.
"This is my home, B. I want to be here. I just don't want to be down in the mines my whole life. At least with medical examiner experience and education I can work up in the domes, or travel to the nearby planets like your mom did."
My limbs suddenly feel like they're filled with lead and I sit down hard on the edge of the desk. "What do you mean travel to nearby planets like my mom? She hardly ever left Mars."
Zion tilts his head at me. "Where do you think she got all the supplies we needed? Galactic command wasn't sending us much more than general rations."
I remember the supply routes the captain just showe
d us. My shoulders sag. "Why didn't I know she traveled so much?"
Zion looks between Derek and I. "She didn't want you to worry about her. She went while we were in school."
I narrow my eyes and shove him in the chest, knocking him back a few feet. I don't even care that he's holding a needle or that the blood in my temple is flowing again. "And how come you know so much? Why did she tell you and not me?" My voice ends up an octave higher than I intended and I clear my throat and swallow. "Seems both my parents talked to you more than their own daughter."
"Because they knew I would look out for you. It's a dangerous life down here, and your parents never left anything to chance."
I feel like I've been punched in the gut. I bend over to catch my breath. Each breath in is full of her scent and the smell of all the Earth books surrounding us. I want to cry.
Derek wraps an arm around me. "You all right, Bren?"
"No." I squeeze my eyes shut to keep the tears from falling. "No, I definitely am not all right," I yell as I stand back up, throwing off his arm.
Both Derek and Zion take a few steps backward.
I stomp between Zion and Mom’s massive desk to a narrow doorway between the bookshelves. I slam my hand into the bio gel and squeeze through the barely open door into the room on the other side. This room is sparse, just a single console near another secure door. I cross the room, pulling my pack tighter around my shoulders. I hesitate with my hand over the bio gel that will open the next door. Something on the console's screen next to me catches my eye. I lower my hand and swear loudly.
"Good to see you've still got some miner in you, B." Zion's voice echoes in the nearly empty room and I turn quickly to see both Zion and Derek standing behind me in the small room.
I ignore his remark and point to the console. "There are warnings all over the entire mine. The pirates are everywhere."
Derek rushes past me to look. It shows a diagram of all the working sections of the mine, with flashing dots all over. He looks at me in horror. "How are we supposed to get around to find the research site if they're everywhere? We can't stay in the maintenance tunnels forever. This is not how they usually attack."
"First of all we're going to stitch Brenna up," says Zion forcefully. "Sit, B." He points to the one chair in the room.
I obey numbly. Derek's right. We didn't count on them having this many people down here, and being this visible. They're usually in and out with their research, leaving a trail of limited, but deadly destruction behind. Why are there so many of them this time?
10
Double Cross
Zion cleans the blood around my temple. His hands are gentle and I smile up at him. The same boy who cried the whole time we were trapped in a tunnel collapse is now consoling and stitching me up. What a difference a year and a whole lot of trauma makes.
I start laughing and hug him tight around his chest.
He holds his arms out, his hands holding the needle and gauze. "What are you laughing at B?"
I sigh and let go of him. "You're all grown up now. You're not the little crybaby anymore that I always had to defend." I grin up at him. "You've also grown taller in the last year as well."
Zion glances back at Derek. "Yes, but at least no one here calls me la muerta." A huge grin creeps across his face as he prepares to stitch up my wound.
I lean to the right slightly to look behind him at Derek who has the decency to look embarrassed. It was him and his friends that gave me that nickname the first day of school on Delta. Where death is something miners expect and deal with everyday, people who live on starships and space stations aren't so comfortable around it. As the coroner's daughter my classmates deemed me untouchable and unclean. That is until I got to know Derek and the security team better during a few deadly investigations.
"Yes, but technically you'd be called el muerto, dead boy." I look back at Zion and laugh.
He steadies me as he starts putting stitches in my head.
"Dad did fill you in on my year. He never told me he was talking to you." I try not to move as the earlier humor drains out of me, leaving me feeling cold and weak.
"I told him I didn't want to bother you and for him not to say anything. You were always saving me and sticking up for me as we grew up. I wasn't sure how to help you from so far away other than let you have space."
I clamp my mouth shut. That's why we've been best friends for so long. We've always known what each other needs even when the other person didn't even know what they needed themselves.
"Looks like you've got several cuts from that door, but only one that needs stitches. Just a few more. You doing all right?"
"Yes," I say quietly as I stare at a spot on the wall behind him. Here I am back at home, in the largest and oldest mine in the galaxy. I have my two best friends with me, and several others waiting in ships just above. Thousands of miners are injured, dead, or fleeing within hundreds of miles of tunnels. And I have to figure out where in all that mess is the answer and proof to stop this galaxy-wide destruction. My chest squeezes painfully.
"All done, B. One stitched, one glued. You all right?" He puts a warm hand on my knee.
My eyes focus back on him, a shiver going up my spine. "That's it, that's what we're missing here."
He narrows his eyes at me. "What are you talking about, B?"
I look over at Derek. "It's not just one research location this time. They have more than one running. That's why there are so many pirates."
"But they're literally all over the place. Wouldn't they just be concentrating on the two or three locations they have?" Derek points to the screen. "It looks like a massive ant hill. They can't have a research location in every corridor or dig shaft."
I wince as Zion places a bandage over my stitches. "You're exactly right. They can't have that many locations. It would be senseless and costly. Not to mention hard to hide that many open spaces." I pull a curl down and twist it around my finger as I stare at the map lit up on the console.
My heart races as the answer comes to me and I stand up. "Guys! The pirates don't know where the research locations are. One of their partners has double crossed them."
I take my pack off and dig around for the cube. "Whoever was in charge of the research on Mars must've had a change of heart. They hid the research locations."
"Slow down, Bren. What are you saying?" Derek asks.
I pull the smooth pattern cube out of my pack. "The pirates don't know where the research locations are. That's why there's so many of them, and that's why they're everywhere. They're desperate and unsure, searching to find them before we do."
"But how come you think there is more than one location?" asks Zion as he packs the med kit back up.
I grin, excitement flowing through my veins. "Because that's what Mom would've done. Everything was done in twos with her research. She always ran trials in twos; even ones she knew were successful. If this AI thing truly came from some sort of idea she had, then whoever took over and twisted her research seems to be using her methods as well."
My hands shaking, I plug the black cube into the console. "Zion, we need to figure out where at least one of the locations is. We have to get proof back to our friends and to the council so they can stop this."
"You have a pattern cube? When did you get this?" Zion peeks over my shoulder as the mine's corridors and shafts are displayed. The active tunnels are red and the main engineering pattern is overlaid on top by purple lines. The effect is stunning visually, and enlightening as I study it.
"Right before we came down here we snuck in and created it. This should be the latest version." I don't take my eyes off the console as I study the pattern.
"Okay, so tell me more about what kind of location we're looking for," says Zion.
"It has to be an old, unused branch. But still with power and a lift nearby. And a space dock not too far away. That's where we found the others."
"And we don't have much time left. Our friends on the outside won't be abl
e to stay put without being discovered for very long," adds Derek.
"And we have to get there before they dismantle and take the research with them."
"That's a lot to look for." Zion shifts beside me. "You say it's some kind of research from your mom. Which one? She did a lot of research. What are we looking for?"
I turn to look at him and frown. "Do you know about all her research studies?"
He shrugs. "I think I do, but I'm not sure she would have anything that would lead to something pirates would want."
I try to ignore the pain in my stomach as I think about how much my mom shared with Zion and not me. I feel like I missed out on a lot with her. "Z, when did you and Mom discuss all this research? Where was I that I don't know about most of this?" I swallow, not sure if I want to know the answer to my own questions.
Zion takes me by the shoulders and turns me toward him. "She loved you very much. And you and I were almost always together. You know that. It wasn't until after she died, and you left for Delta, that I read through all her research. While she was still here she just told me about her travels and that she was doing research. But I had to read through her files to get the details." He points back toward Mom’s office.
I take a deep breath and let it out. "Thanks, Z. It's just that the last several weeks I've met people that were good friends with Mom that I don't even remember. It just feels like I was a lousy daughter to not have known hardly anything about my mom." I try to break out of Zion's grasp, but he just holds me in place.
"Don't say that, B. Your mom thought the world of you. Kids never really know what's going on in their parents’ lives. Just like she didn't always know what you were up to." Zion winks at me and lets me go. "Like the tunnels. Did you ever tell her about those?"
I shake my head. "I didn't have to. She already knew about them. She grew up here after leaving Earth when she was little, remember?"
"Oh yes I forgot. She told us so many stories about how hard life was down on Earth, it just seemed like that's where she had grown up."
Delta Fringe Series Boxset: Books 1-3 Page 42
