Chapter 14 HUNTER #2
Mr Chin-Up is halfway down the room, gun up and out, standing perfectly still as he listens.
Then there’s a faint sound from the huge walk-in freezer, whose door stands ajar, its interior as disorganized as the rest of the kitchen.
It’s not much – just a quiet, almost muffled click, as if someone’s brushed against one of the walls.
He’s across the kitchen in three long strides and slipping through that gap in the door.
That’s when I really move, breaking into a run. But I’ve screwed up Mars gravity again, and I slam way too hard into the freezer door, sending a bolt of pain through my shoulder.
Cleo comes scrambling down from the high shelf where she was hiding.
She drops the remote control she’s holding, and as I push the long doorhandle closed, she’s ready to slip a zip tie around it, securing it against the shelving units next to it.
Then she adds another for good measure and carefully hangs a cleaning cloth over the handle, so that on a quick inspection, the fact that it’s secured shut will be hidden.
There’s silence from inside, where Mr Chin-Up is no doubt discovering that his only company is a small cleaning robot, trying helplessly to bang its way free of the maze of frozen food we built for it.
The thick insulation of the freezer walls blocks all sound, but the recording is probably still playing Cleo’s voice at him, and it’ll have progressed to a warning: Pull up your pressure suit now, for protection against the cold. You might be here for a while.
Cleo steps back, her hands clapped over her mouth to stifle a giggle. ‘I can’t believe that worked,’ she manages. And then: ‘Oh, you’re kidding.’ She points, and when I follow the line of her finger, I see the warning sign beside the zip-tied door.
Please check for staff inside the freezer before closing, every time. Safety first!
And now I’m laughing too – I’m laughing too hard, with the heady relief of not having to fight a terrifying muscle man with a kitchen knife. ‘I’m a Graves,’ I manage with a shrug. ‘Rule-breaking’s always been our thing.’
I can’t remember the last time I laughed like this – with the wild weakness that comes from having braved something terrifying and somehow survived it. Or, wait … I can, actually.
I was about twelve, and I was with my sister.
We’d snuck into our mother’s conference room before a board meeting, and then heard the board members all arriving early.
Our choices were to dive under the table, or show ourselves and catch hell for being in a room full of classified papers. We dived under the table.
We stayed put for the whole two hours, desperately trying not to make a noise, and at one point Marguerite nearly suffocated me, trying to stop me from sneezing. If our mother had caught us down there, we’d have been skinned alive.
When the last of them left, we collapsed in laughter, clinging to each other, and every time one of us managed to get it under control, we’d make eye contact and start again. It’s one of the last memories I have of us together, before it all … well, went how it went.
Cleo presses a hand to her mouth again, but doesn’t really manage to chase away the laughter.
‘We should keep moving,’ she says. ‘He’s going to spend a minute trying to get out, before he abandons his dignity and radios for help.
Assuming he can get a signal through the freezer insulation, but let’s say he can, just in case. Did you get the headsets prepped?’
‘You get the food ready. I’ll turn it on,’ I reply, snagging a muffin on my way out of the kitchen.
Back at my nest of headsets, I carefully lift them off the table and set them underneath, where they’re even better concealed.
Then I check each of them is tuned to one of the base’s communication channels, of which there are five.
And then I turn on the speaker.
Immediately my own headset is filled with the song now broadcasting on all five channels, the perky tones of Victoriana Lu earworming their way straight into my head.
Gonna blast into space, baby!
Gonna hit third base, baby!
Gotta love this face, baby!
Rocket to the moon, yeah!
I rip my headset off, wincing. My pain is worth it, though. Everyone on this base with a headset just got hit with the same song. And it’s on loop. Which means that until they find my little setup, our friends just lost their comms.
That should help even the odds.
Over near the entrance to the kitchen, Cleo is carefully laying out the remains of a meal for six people – dirty plates, half-eaten food, half-finished drinks, and a big, tempting bowl of fresh fruit in the middle of the table.
Spacers love fresh fruit and vegetables – even with the greenhouse here, they’re not that easy to come by.
‘I should have eaten some,’ I say, casting an eye over her offering. ‘Is that an apricot? We only had apples on the freighter out here, it was inhuman.’
She fixes me with an unreadable look, but turns out that’s fine, because she kindly translates a moment later. ‘Do you know what an apple costs?’ she asks. ‘I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve eaten one in my life. And I’ve never had an apricot.’
‘But they—’ I have no idea where I’m heading with that, because talking about my usual breakfast of fruit that some lackey has carefully cut into the shapes of flowers would probably get me punched. Thankfully she cuts me off.
‘They’re prepped, and they’re not for us.’
‘Wipe your hands off,’ I remind her.
‘On your face,’ she mutters, which immediately gets Victoriana singing in my head again. Gotta love this face, baby!
I decide not to share the line out loud.
‘All ready,’ she continues, looking up. ‘Headsets done?’
‘You wanna hear? We could have a sing-along. It’s catchy stuff.’
She snickers, and the grin makes her eyes sparkle. She really has a great smile, and it feels good to earn a laugh from her. ‘I will kill you,’ she threatens. ‘And if you even try singing to me about third base—’
‘Please, Cleo.’ I frown in mock disapproval. ‘We’re in the middle of trying to overcome a hostile mercenary force. I hardly think now is the time for—’
And then it’s her turn to interrupt me, whacking me on the arm. ‘Shut up, rich boy. Let’s keep moving. We have more to do.’