Chapter 12 HUNTER
HUNTER
I SCRAMBLE FRANTICALLY TOWARD the junction, shoving myself backward through the ventilation pipe. Then I drop down through the duct, feet-first, praying there’s nobody waiting for me.
The storage room is empty, and I stumble back when I hit the floor, colliding with a packing crate as Cleo jumps down after me, arms windmilling for balance.
The second she’s on her feet I spin toward the door that leads to the greenhouse, but Cleo grabs for my arm, yanking me back.
‘More hallways this way,’ she raps out, tilting her head toward the opposite door. ‘More places to lose them.’
‘But we know the route this way,’ I argue, pointing back at the door we came through.
She studies me for a long second, then lets go of her grip on my arm and simply turns to smack the release beside her door panel and disappear through it at a run.
Cursing under my breath, I do exactly what she’s betting on, and run after her.
She leads me through a series of storage rooms, all linked together, all piled high with boxes and leftover materials. On Mars, they never throw anything out – after all, you have to either ship it in or manufacture it here, if you end up wishing later that you hadn’t got rid of it.
Neither of us speaks – the only soundtrack is the soft, steady thud of our footsteps, and the rasp of our breath. My senses are hyperalert, straining for the smallest sign that someone’s on our tail, or up ahead, or about to burst through a door.
Ahead of me, Cleo ducks past a sheet of plastic that’s hanging to separate a half-renovated room and grabs a support column to swing herself around toward a door.
Did she get this good running from debt collectors? No wonder she calls me rich boy. It’s all anyone sees when they look at me, I do know that. But for Cleo, it must be so unimaginably different from her life. It must seem like I can fly.
Since Dad died and my life imploded, I’ve been furious that I’ve got everything anyone could want, except the one thing I want. Surrounded by riches but shut out by my family.
Watching the way Cleo instantly takes flight, seeing the way it’s an instinct for her, I’m realizing there are worse things than being rich but alone. I could just be alone.
We break out into a hallway, and it must be the huge ring corridor that circles the base – it has the same long, slow curve, the same lights set into the ceiling.
I stumble after her, throwing a hand out to drag along the wall, trying to stop myself from falling.
Running in low gravity is like constantly falling forward – fast, as long as you don’t need to change direction or stop.
We approach a major intersection, where someone’s tried to make it homey.
There are crates piled up to sit on like park benches, a fake tree, and a pole with street signs pointing in every possible direction, listing distances to other settlements and compounds: EURO W, EURO E, GRAVESUP, FREYACO, AFRO U, ARES TECH, and even EARTH.
As we dash across the intersection, a voice rings out from one of the other corridors. ‘There! Target ahead!’
An instant later a blast rings out, and the plastic crate nearest me shatters, shrapnel flying as a bullet hits it. I dive over the crates, landing in an awkward roll that sends a bolt of pain up my spine, and somehow scramble to my feet.
I grab Cleo’s hand as she stumbles, and sling her toward the safety of a corridor – she keeps hold of me and uses her grip to drag me on with her.
There’s another blast behind us as we take the next turn – I keep hold of her hand now, and let her steer. We’re sprinting toward a huge set of double doors, but suddenly they start to slide slowly closed, with a soft hum and a warning beep.
Someone on the bridge is trying to herd us, corral us somewhere we can’t escape.
‘They’re using the cameras,’ I gasp. ‘We have to get out of sight.’
Cleo skids to a halt, then ducks sidelong into another room.
I’m an instant behind her, and together we burst into a workshop.
Like everywhere else on the base, it was abandoned mid-shift.
There’s a 3D printer still running, slowly extruding what was probably meant to be the wall of a hab section.
In the time since the evac, it’s turned into a rippling sheet of messy build materials, pushing up against a neighboring table and starting to collapse in on itself.
Music’s still playing softly from one corner and it masks our footsteps as we hurry past workbenches laden with tools, half of them branded with the shooting stars of the GravesUP logo.
My gaze lands on something shaped like a gun, and I grab for it, then realize it’s useless – the only thing it’s loaded with is putty or something.
‘Yes!’ Cleo hisses, her eyes lighting up. ‘Give.’
I don’t waste my breath explaining it won’t work – we don’t have time for that. I just toss it to her. She catches it without breaking stride and jams it into her belt. If she’s going to fake having a weapon, she’s going to need something more convincing.
She halts, glancing at the door we came through and then looking at the top of the 3D printer. ‘Boost me up,’ she whispers. ‘Quick.’
I crouch to make a stirrup out of my hands, and she sets her foot in it. Then I straighten my legs and shove her upward.
Cleo grabs the top and pulls herself the rest of the way, and I dust my hands off, looking up and readying myself for the climb. Earth strength, don’t fail me now.
I jump, straining up to grab at the edge of the machine, which quietly hums to itself, unaware of my struggles.
The edge is smooth, and I’m white-knuckled as I try to drag myself up the unforgiving surface with the strength in my hands alone.
Why isn’t Cleo helping me? I can’t even see her up there.
The back of my neck is prickling, and I’m waiting for someone to come bursting through the door, weapon trained on me. Then with one more kick I’m moving, and I scramble up to flop onto the top of the printer, breathing hard. Below me, the machinery hums away.
And I don’t know why, but that’s the moment I realize I left our helmets by the ventilation pipes. If they work that out – if they have a way to flush this room …
I look around for Cleo, who’s at the other end of the huge machine, reaching for a big box that sits on a high shelf. Her whole arm is extended, fingers straining, and as I watch, she manages to grab the box, pulling it toward herself.
Then it tips off the edge of the shelf, the contents beginning to spill, and I flinch – what was that and did we need it? But no, no we didn’t. Cleo’s fiendish.
With a series of clatters and pings, a box of ball bearings goes spilling across the floor of the workshop.
They bounce like raindrops hitting the pavement, rolling into every corner, then ricocheting off whatever surface they hit and starting all over again.
It’s going to be very hard for our pursuers to move around the workshop.
Then, as I pull myself up to my hands and knees to get a better view of the impending carnage, Cleo unclips our tiny drone from her suit. She flips it over to inspect the bottom and opens its hatch to find the delivery net inside. I’ve seen these deliver takeout food before, but what …?
She pulls the putty gun – is that what it is? – out of her belt, and jams it into the net. Then she flips her eyepiece into place and she waits. So I wait too. I have no idea what she’s doing, but I know better than to interrupt a diabolical genius at work, and that’s clearly what I’m witnessing.
Her red hair’s falling around her face, and there’s a smear of dirt on the fair skin of her cheek that I want to brush away. I can’t help it – I let my gaze trace her profile, the curve of her lips, the graceful lines of her neck, the set of her jaw.
This girl is really something – beautiful, yes, but so much more. She’s fierce.
How did I not notice before? I mean, I noticed her, but how did I ever think she was scared, or vulnerable?
She’s fascinating, and I don’t want to look away.
I said I’d help her get back to Earth, and of course I will, but I hope I can convince her to stay. Hers is the kind of ingenuity Mars needs. That GravesUP needs. And maybe there’s something in her that I need.
A man comes bursting through the door – he’s big, heavily built, with a nose that’s been broken one too many times. This is one of the two guys we glimpsed in the corridor, right before we hid in the closet. He looks like a boxer, and his scowl says he’s spoiling for a fight.
The Boxer makes it two steps into the room, and then hits the ball bearings and goes flying – he’s actually horizontal in the air for a second, before he crashes down with a grunt of pain. Immediately he starts to push up, even angrier than before.
That’s when Cleo flicks a switch on the putty gun and launches the drone, a stream of something trailing after it. And oh … oh. It’s not putty.
It’s expanding foam, the kind they use for emergency repairs.
The drone makes a pass over the Boxer like a tiny fighter jet dropping bombs, and as the pearls of foam hit him, they instantly start to grow, wrapping around his limbs and body and hardening in place.
He has the presence of mind to cup a hand over his face and preserve his airways, but in less than three seconds, he’s immobilized.
Two down, five to go, and five and a half hours left until this place explodes.
Cleo’s actually grinning as she slides down the far side of the printer, hits the floor silently, and gestures for me to follow.
This girl is a badass.
Without a word, we head for the door on the far side of the workshop, and I slip through it after her, honestly just waiting to see what she’s going to do next.
She’s really something.