Chapter 6 CLEO
CLEO
IF I’M BEING PERFECTLY honest, Hunter Graves is mighty fine. I did not expect this to be the case.
I’ve never laid eyes on him before – they make sure of that – but I’ve thought about him plenty of times.
I thought he’d be some kind of inbred aristocrat with a weak chin. Instead, he’s standing beside me, bare-chested, and my oh my, someone has been doing his exercises on the trip.
I’ve always enjoyed imagining him in a sweeping black cloak, all the better to be evil in, but right now he looks like an action figure whose shirt fell off.
I’ve got used to lean Martian bodies in the three months I’ve been here, but Hunter is clearly planning on making the return journey to Earth – he’s been keeping his strength up, in readiness for the higher gravity back home.
He’s got olive-brown skin, tousled dark brown hair, full lips, and the kind of bearing and posture that screams money. He’s also got – I may have mentioned this already – no shirt on. There are entirely too many abs on display. Yum.
It’s a pity he’s a filthy rich capitalist whose family exploits the poor every morning before breakfast. Ask me how I know. Or don’t. We don’t have time for a story that long.
For now, though I’d like to kick him in the tender parts just for possessing Graves DNA, I keep it nice.
Because if he owes me one – for saving his life, for instance – I’ll be able to write my own ticket to anywhere on Mars.
His family has that kind of pull. And I’m going to need that ticket when the base crew returns and starts asking who I am.
Back on Earth, the Graves family have their claws in almost every part of life in one way or another.
Their logo is on the food I eat. Both my local malls are GravesUP branded.
They run the media, have major stakes in health care; they probably made my underwear.
It’s bad enough that you can’t turn around without seeing something they control.
For me, that greed took a personal toll.
Pretending I’m happy to breathe the same air as one of them is unpleasant, but I can do it if it’ll get me where I need to go. Which is anywhere but here.
‘All right,’ I try, dragging my mind back to the problem of my immediate survival. ‘What do you think they’re seeing up on Orbital? Will they know when the station doesn’t vent?’
‘Great question.’ He gets a line between his eyebrows when he concentrates.
‘I don’t know why it’s doing this, so I’m not sure what it’s going to broadcast to them.
They won’t get a visual, because the dust storm’s completely surrounded us by now.
And there’s no way to know if they’re receiving any status updates, given I couldn’t even ping them with the mayday. ’
‘So if they think we’re dead, we could be here awhile,’ I conclude. ‘Hey, technically the base is abandoned now, right? That means we could claim the territory, doesn’t it?’
He huffs a soft laugh. ‘Almost. You’re on staff here, though. So actually, you’re all that’s standing between the great United Nations and the rest of Mars. Whatever they’re paying you, you should ask for a raise.’
Whoops. Yes, right, on staff here at Pax. That’s definitely me. Engineering student, that’s what I said. Shut up, Cleo.
‘I want to see if I can get a signal out. I can try—’ He pauses as his attention is dragged back to the data stream in front of him, and the silence draws out. I don’t know what he’s doing to that system, but he’s romancing it hard – I guess having a way with technology is in his blood.
It’s nearly a minute later – I spend the time contemplating his profile, which is irritatingly flawless – when his shoulders drop and he lets out a slow breath of pure relief, tipping his head back to gaze up at the ceiling.
‘Are we smiling now?’ I prompt him, though I don’t smack him in the arm again, because that was a lot of skin last time, and my gloves are still off.
‘Cleo, I think our luck just turned around.’ He points to a tiny schematic in the corner of one of his screens, enlarging it with a quick gesture. ‘Airlock sixteen just opened. I think the base crew’s coming back.’
He looks across at me with a grin that’s blindingly charming, but somewhere in the back of my mind, something’s shifting uneasily. As he studies my face, his smile slowly starts to die away.
‘Why that airlock?’ I say softly, in answer to the question in his green eyes. ‘All the ground evac vehicles took off to the west. Sixteen is on the east side. Why would someone circle all the way around to the other side to let themself back in? It’s not even a major entry point.’
Before he can reply, a voice rings out in the distance. It’s a man’s, rough and too loud. ‘Honey, I’m home!’
Hunter and I both go still at once. Then he speaks quietly. ‘That’s a weird thing to say in an emergency situation, don’t you think?’
There’s a prickling on the back of my neck that usually means someone I’m running from has spotted me.
I totally agree it’s a weird thing for someone to yell right now, but I’m trying to play the engineering student, not the career criminal who always suspects she’s about to get screwed.
‘I guess? Maybe they know it’s not an emergency?
He must have his helmet off, if we can hear him at this distance. ’
But when our eyes meet, I’m surprised to see that Hunter looks as wary as I feel. Living a life like his, I wouldn’t have thought he’d know how to be cautious.
‘I’ve had a lot of training,’ he says slowly. ‘Because I’d make a high-value hostage. And one of the things they’re always telling me is that I should listen to my gut. Listen when that twitch between my shoulder blades tells me I’m not safe.’
‘I learned that … in a different place,’ I say, one part of my brain wondering what he’d make of the back alleys where I found my danger. Wondering what he’d say if I told him who put me in that danger, without ever knowing or caring. ‘But yeah, I hear you.’
‘Let’s step back out of sight. If we’re wrong, we can come strolling out and hug them one by one until they beg for mercy, no harm done. We don’t even have to admit we were lurking.’
My heart’s starting to speed up. I nod. Because that spot between my shoulder blades? It’s twitching too.
With a gesture he dismisses the screens, and I brush the broken plastic cover for the monitors onto the ground and set the snow globe back in place.
Hunter scoops up his bag and retrieves my gloves for me, and I dart off to grab the boots and trousers he dumped on the floor. Then we hurry through the main entrance to the north.
I flick off the hallway lights at the control panel, and we press in against the wall, standing together in the darkness and silence. I’m nearer the door, Hunter just beyond me. I wish now that he’d put his damn shirt back on, but I don’t want to tell him I’ve noticed he’s not wearing one.
‘This is probably for nothing,’ he whispers. ‘I’m sure there’s a reason they’ve come in this way. He even said he’s home.’
‘And yet both our creep monitors went off at the same time,’ I point out.
‘Right. If there’s even a chance they’re hitchers or some sort of criminals, we can’t trust them. They could do anything. You know what those people are like.’
I think I make a sound, and my breath leaves me like a punch.
That’s me he’s talking about so casually. I’m one of the hitchers he can’t trust – one of the people his family would prefer to leave behind, while they build themselves a new world on Mars, screwing the old one in the process.
How the hell am I going to convince this guy to give me a ride out of here once he works out who – and what – I am?
Then footsteps sound across the room, and four figures in pressure suits come stalking in, fanning out to different workstations as if they know exactly where they’re going.
There are no Pax markings on what they’re wearing – could they be from another station, come to investigate the evacuation alarm? Their helmets are already off, though, so they’re clearly not worried about asphyxiating when the station vents.
They take up their places – all unsmiling, all business. There’s an efficiency to their movements that has me holding my breath, as if they’re predators and might hear me exhale.
The leader – I swear, I know by the way he walks – stalks over to the commander’s station.
He’s in maybe his forties, his head shaved down to dark stubble, built like he could fight three guys at once.
He wears a patch over his left eye, which has to be a choice given how easy a bionic would be to fit.
The patch should make him look like a fake pirate, but actually just makes him look like he could rip you in two and not break his stride.
Everything about him screams single-minded purpose.
The Pirate sweeps everything off the desk in one quick, sharp gesture.
The snow globe smashes, sending up fragments of glass and drops of water.
The plant’s pot shatters, dirt scattering across the floor.
Then he sets down a portable system on the desk and starts plugging it into the commander’s outlets.
‘Minute one begins on my mark,’ he says, and each of the invaders raises a hand to check their wrist unit. ‘We have seven hours and fifteen minutes. Mark.’
7 HOURS, 15 MINUTES REMAINING
Two of the others start peeling off their pressure suits, ready to get comfortable, but one woman puts down the crate she’s carrying and throws open the lid. She moves with the kind of deadly grace that a snake uses to hypnotize small animals right before it lashes out at them.
She pulls out a pistol and tosses it to the nearest woman.
Her teammate catches it, turns it over in her hands like she knows exactly how to use it, and then secures it at her waist. And then she turns around, and I catch sight of her face.
She has a hard expression and a tattoo that runs straight across her forehead like a tiara, brightly colored jewels drawn around a silver band that seems almost to shine.
Shit.
I know this woman. She usually runs with the Gramercy gangs, and I last saw her back on Earth.
In an instant I’m back in an alleyway, my lungs burning, my legs giving out as I push myself to keep running, keep running, keep running.
I know I can’t, I know it’s impossible – and I know that if she catches me, if they catch me, they’ll leave me bleeding on the concrete, an example for others.
An example for my mother, who’ll never even know, though they don’t believe that.
I feel the rough plasteel of the apartment building’s wall as I grab at its corner, swing myself around into an intersection, and dive behind a snack cart. The vendor looks down, and I see him weigh it up.
He hides me, and they’ll trash his stuff if they figure it out. He gives me up, and he has to watch what happens next.
I see the moment I become invisible to him, as his gaze slides away and he hails the next buyer. I curl into a ball, hugging myself, trying to keep my breathing quiet.
Here and now, my breath seems to freeze in my throat, and I’m straight into another memory.
I’m in a club, looking for someone to hustle, the music pumping through my veins, sweat sticking to my skin as bodies writhe around me.
I push through the crowd and come face to face with her – Sabrina Barr – her tattooed gems picked out with crystals for the night, her usual fatigues switched for a sheath dress.
I freeze as her hand comes up to steady herself. Our eyes lock. I see the moment she makes me, recognition clicking into place.
My hands come up too, ready to shove her away backward, to twist and plunge onto the dance floor. But she grabs my wrist, her hand closing around it like a vise.
‘Easy,’ she says, raising her voice above the thumping bass. And then, impossibly, she winks. ‘I’m not on the clock right now. I’m only an asshole for money.’
And then she releases me and turns away, and I’m left dry-mouthed and shaking, cradling my wrist as if it’s been burned.
Sabrina’s not a terrible human, but when she’s paid to do a job, she does it. In my experience, Sabrina doesn’t do nice jobs. If she’s here, this is … yeah. Not a good time to be here too.
I turn my head toward Hunter, and his gaze is waiting for me, eyes huge. He might not see any familiar faces, but he’s obviously figured out the same thing I have.
Whatever the next seven hours and fifteen minutes hold, it’s going to be bad, bad news.