Day Eight
(age twenty-four)
Kelli ran wildly at first, with no thoughts except that she had to keep running and find Rowan before it was too late.
With her hands cuffed, she couldn’t swing her arms for speed.
She did the best she could, holding her fists by her solar plexus, tucking her elbows in, pumping her legs as hard as she possibly could.
Her lungs burned; it was harder to run in the slightly-higher gravity of Io than on Callisto, but she kept doing it.
Her only plan was to run back to the central atrium, where they’d dragged Rowan away.
Halfway there, it occurred to her that she didn’t actually know where Rowan had gone.
Where was she running to? She knew where the atrium was, and which door they’d dragged Rowan through, but now that she thought of it, she shouldn’t go back to the atrium; Conchita and the cops were probably both still in there, and they wouldn’t be happy to see her.
And even if she got there undetected, how was she going to guess how far they’d dragged Rowan, what turns they’d taken?
She saw a display screen in one corner—the kind that people could use, in big complicated sections of city, to bring up a map.
She ducked into that corner and paused just long enough to get her bearings.
It was hard to push the buttons with her hands cuffed, but it still took less than a minute to find what she was looking for: a space marked Waste Disposal.
It was not far from the atrium, but the map showed a side hallway that would get her there faster.
Kelli ducked in that direction, breaking into a run again.
In the middle of a wide corridor, the words Waste Disposal were emblazoned in strong red letters, along with a warning symbol, above an opaque metal gate, hinged at the top.
Heart in her throat, dreading what she might see on the inside—flames?
crushing walls? awful grinders?—Kelli pushed the gate open.
It opened into a long, dim, metal-sided shaft.
Down at the bottom, there was nothing more awful than a big pile of garbage—most of it sealed up in black plastic bags, with a few big bits of broken furniture thrown in loose.
It covered the whole bottom of the shaft; it was hard to tell exactly how far down the pile went before it hit actual floor, or whatever else lay underneath it.
Rowan stood on top of the pile, shifting his weight, frantic and hurt but very much alive. At the sound of the gate moving, he looked up. He had a split lip, and blood all over his chin, and he held his arm at a funny angle, cradling a swollen right hand.
“Hey!” he called, in the tones of someone calling frantically for rescue. He had to really shout to be heard over the alarm.
“Rowan!” she called back, nearly losing her balance with relief. He was here. She wasn’t too late.
He squinted up at her. “Kelli?!”
“I’m here. I’m going to get you out, hang on.” She looked around wildly. How was she going to get him out? She needed a rope or something. Where was she going to get a rope?
“But Inspiration—”
“I ran away from them. I changed my mind. I’m going to get you a rope. Where can I get a rope?”
She turned to look around for ropes, and ran smack into one of the big men who worked for Conchita Quixada.
He was easily head and shoulders taller than her. He had pale skin, a big beard, and a thick leather jacket, and he scowled as he looked her up and down.
“Thought they arrested you,” he said, curling his lip. “You thought you’d set a fire and escape in the chaos, huh?”
“Change of plans,” Kelli blurted, panicked—and lunged to the side, trying to duck past him.
He grabbed her. This man’s grasp was surer than Baz’s. Kelli fought back with everything she had—knees, elbows, even her feet smashing down against his shins.
Faintly, in the back of her mind, she wondered what Rowan made of all this. He could probably hear the whole thing from down there in the pile of trash, if the alarms hadn’t drowned it out.
“Let me go!” she shouted.
The man grunted with effort, holding on to her. After a few false starts, he got a grip on her arm and yanked it back at a bad angle. Such a wave of pain shot through her that she went briefly limp, gasping, overloaded.
“You set this fire,” the man growled. “Why? What’s your play?”
Kelli had no idea, actually. Zhaleh wanted people to think it was her. Did she want people to think that she’d done it for some reason in particular? Kelli couldn’t think what that reason would be. “None of your business!” she shouted.
The man scoffed. “Conchita will make you talk.”
By this point the first wave of pain from the arm-twist had passed, and Kelli noticed that the man had brought his forearm into biting range. She lunged and sank her teeth in. For one crucial second his grip loosened. Kelli thrashed, trying to twist away.
“FIRE IN QUADRANT BETA-THREE,” blared the alarm.
No matter how Kelli moved and squirmed and kneed the man, she couldn’t quite get out of his grasp. He tried to get the crook of his arm around her neck. Kelli twisted away from the first attempt, but this guy was stronger than her. She didn’t think she could hold him off for long.
“ALL WORKERS, EVACUATE IN AN ORDERLY MANNER.”
“Look,” Kelli snapped, “there’s a fire, okay? You can’t drag me to Conchita fast enough to get out of the fire in time. Not if I keep fighting you every step of the way.”
The man huffed out a breath. “Fine,” he said.
In one swift movement, he pulled her down and kneed her hard in the ribs. The knee hurt a lot, driving her breath out. Then without even pausing, he pushed her backward through the waste disposal gate.
She kicked her legs to get traction against the doorway. But her limbs were weak and clumsy now, and this man made his living shoving people in directions they’d rather not go. He slammed her once against the inside wall of the shaft, then let go.
Kelli fell, screaming.
She landed on her back on the heap of trash bags. They were soft-ish, but the impact knocked the breath out of her all over again. The gate, far above her, clanged shut, and she heard the faint footsteps of the big man hurrying away.
“Good job,” said Rowan, throwing up his hands. “Great rescue.”
“I’m trying my best!” she wheezed.
He slumped against the wall. “We’re going to die down here.”
The walls of the shaft were very smooth—no devices or panels, just blank metal the whole way down.
The only break in them that Kelli could see, now that she was down at the bottom, was an odd indentation all around the circumference of the wall, about a foot above their heads.
Something like the sill for a retracting hatch door, something that could close and seal them in.
She didn’t see any fire nozzles, or grinders, or anything else indicating exactly what fate awaited them after that.
It all smelled like a regular garbage heap—which was to say, terrible.
“I told the community standards enforcement team what Conchita said,” said Kelli, picking herself up. “About putting you in the trash. They said they’d put that in the search, they’d check the waste disposal mechanisms and see if anybody was stuck there. Maybe they’ll come. Maybe they’ll see us.”
“Was that before or after you started the fire?”
“ALL WORKERS, EVACUATE IN AN ORDERLY MANNER,” said the alarm.
“I didn’t!” Kelli shouted over the klaxons. “That wasn’t me!”
“Either way! I think everyone’s kind of busy evacuating right now!”
Kelli looked up at the walls, smooth and unbroken metal, about six feet apart. Could they climb out of here? Could they grab on to something? That hatch door’s sill looked grabbable, maybe, but nothing else above it did. It was a long way up.
“You told Inspiration,” Rowan said. “Didn’t you? About the heist. And they followed us here.”
“I did.” Kelli took a breath. “I told them about the fire, too. The old one.”
“What?”
“I was being blackmailed. I didn’t like it. And I thought, if they’re going to find out anyway, I want them to find out from me.” She looked down. “But they didn’t care. I told them about Elaine, and they said—it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter to them about justice, or anything, just money.”
It could have been Kelli’s imagination, but it was starting to smell a little like smoke in here.
“I could have told you that.” Rowan wasn’t shouting anymore, but he looked more frustrated than ever. “I’ve been telling you that since we were kids.”
“Yeah, well, I should have believed you.” She crossed her arms. “But you can’t tell me the Brimstones are any better. You can’t tell me Conchita Quixada really cares about anything besides money either. And you still shouldn’t have lied to me.”
Rowan sat down heavily in the pile of trash.
“No, I shouldn’t have,” he said. “We deserve this, don’t we? We’re both trash. Inspiration, the Brimstones, both sides of them—they’re all trash. I hope they all die.”
Under the klaxons, there was suddenly an ominous creaking sound, like a machine starting to get into gear.
“Come on,” said Kelli, craning her neck to look up at the gate, so far above them. “You can climb, right? You’re good at climbing. We can climb out of here.”
“Not with a broken wrist.” Rowan raised his right arm limply. “Broke it trying to catch myself in the fall down here. Or sprained at least. Can’t tell. Also there’s no footholds anywhere in this thing. And I can’t do a chimney climb—the walls are too far apart.”
“Not if we do it together,” Kelli countered.
Rowan blinked like she’d told him they should do it with the help of space aliens, or a magical unicorn. “What?”
Kelli raised her cuffed hands to her solar plexus and stuck out her elbows, her best imitation of the position she’d used ten years ago, when they were kids, when they’d climbed together into that nook at the top of the dome and picnicked there with the whole colony spread out below them.