She glanced up, flicked her eyes from Wren to a translucent panel on the wall by the door. He nodded, crept to it, ran a small finger across it. The false concrete wall slid back into place with a whisper, as seamless inside as it was without. A pounding heartbeat later, the blue-white light switched itself off.
Pitch-black.
Cass could hear Wren’s rapid breathing. She opened her mouth to whisper to him, to calm him, when suddenly the air was rent with the shriek of steel exploding inwards.
Then, silence.
Cass strained, tried to hear anything over the rush of blood in her own ears, the hammering of her heart. Nothing, but the happy whir of the centrifuge. Even little Wren must have been holding his breath. In the darkness and honeyed-buzz, Cass lost all orientation, felt herself spinning slowly in every direction at once, slipping across the frictionless floor without moving. Her forehead thunked hard against something. A wall? No, the floor. Or was it the ceiling? It was warm. Much too warm.
A spark of light. Something moving in the darkness. Piercing cold in her hand, tiny, a splinter of icicle thrust through her palm. Wren. Lips to her ear. Calling her.
“Take it, Mama,” his voice floated in nothingness. “Take it.”
Quint. In complete darkness, somehow, impossibly, miraculously, he’d found what she needed. Cass moved heavy arms, threw open her coat, raised her shirt. The device implanted in the right side of her abdomen snicked open, accepted the tab, sealed itself. It would metabolize soon.
Maybe soon enough. Maybe not.
Gradually, the room slowed its spin, and Cass could tell she was lying on the floor. It was a start. She felt Wren lie down, curl up next to her. Clammy, trembling. Her mothering instinct wanted to soothe him, but a more powerful instinct refused. Survival.
Outside, in the main room, the barest suggestion of sound: a light scuffling. Someone had found the doctor, shifted his corpse. It was then that the centrifuge completed its work, with a click that sounded like the racking of a shotgun, a beep like a klaxon. Reflexively, Cass squeezed Wren to her.
Silence. Nothing. Then dread. The false wall decompressed, unsealed, slid open. The blue-white light bore down, pinning them to the floor.
In the doorway stood the tall man.
Cass felt Wren bury his face; her side, where his small body pressed against hers, grew warm, wet. The tall man glared down upon them, silent, sharp features like a bird of prey before the kill. His eyes locked with Cass’s. Smoldering.
The pain was receding, but the quint hadn’t taken hold yet.
“Fedor,” she rasped. “You’re too late. Overtapped. Me and the boy.”
Fedor did not react.
“Go home. Let us die in peace.”
No reply, no hint that Fedor had heard her.
“We’ll die together,” she bluffed. “The way it should be.”
“Not yet,” Fedor replied, robotically. His eyes unfocused, stared through or beyond them.
“I’ve got them,” he said, pimming someone far removed. “Yes, and the boy.”
It was a one-sided conversation, but Cass knew to whom Fedor spoke.
“Da, OK, OK.”
His eyes refocused on Cass.
“He says I bring the boy,” Fedor said, with an Eastern European accent and a smile like a corpse with its lips stretched back over its teeth. “You? You may die.”
Cass tensed, willed the quint into her bloodstream, pleaded with her nerves to accept the chems. Fedor took a step into the room, and then stopped. Held, like a wolf catching an unfamiliar and unexpected scent.
“Everything alright in here?” came a voice from the main room.
Fedor turned slowly on one heel. Cass forced herself to an elbow, peered around Fedor’s legs to see who had spoken. He was just sitting there, on the steel table in the middle of the main room, like he’d been there all day, hands on his knees, feet dangling.
“Reckon not,” said Three, glancing to the crumpled remains of the doctor.
“Doctor’s closed, friend,” Fedor answered, emotionless. “Time you go somewhere else.”
Three sniffed.
“I’d rather not.”
Fedor advanced on him a few paces, drew up to his full height.
“Not a request, friend,” said Fedor. “There is private business here.”
Three shrugged.
“I’ve got some business with the two of ’em myself. Maybe you can wait outside.”
“I don’t think you understand, friend.”
“I don’t think you understand, friend.”
Three leaned slightly to one side, made eye contact with Cass.
“Hey kid,” he called.
Wren made no initial response, but Cass nudged, encouraging him. He peeked up, terrified. Three reached into his own left coat pocket, saw Fedor tense, pupils constricting, jaw tightening, readying himself. Three slowly withdrew his closed fist, turned it palm up, and opened it.
“You lose something?”
Wren scrunched up his face, then raised his head as recognition came. His shuttlecar, resting on Three’s palm. Wren nodded slightly, frightened, timid, unsure of what to do.
“Well, come get it,” Three said.
No one moved. Three looked Fedor dead in the eyes, saw them dancing frantically as Fedor internally searched for any kind of record or file on this stranger.
“You wanna let the kid by?”
Fedor hesitated, calculated. Then sidestepped slightly, and held out a hand, making space and gesturing for Wren to enter the main room. Three looked again to Cass, still outstretched on the floor, caught her eye; saw fear, desperation, but something else not there before.
Hope.
She pushed Wren up, whispered to him. Wren nodded, clambered to his feet, shuffled through the door, wary of both men and obviously ashamed of the darkened wet spot trailing down one leg of his pants.
He stopped halfway between Three and Fedor, out of reach of either. Three didn’t get off the table. Just held out his left hand, where the shuttlecar waited.
“It’s yours, isn’t it?” he asked.
Wren shot a glance to Cass. She was sitting up now. She nodded. He looked back to Three, nodded.
“Well, come get it.”
Wren started to move, but Fedor stopped him.
“No!” he barked. “That is close enough, Spinner.”
Three eyed Fedor. Fedor glared back.
“Can you catch, kid?” Three asked, not taking his eyes off Fedor.
Wren didn’t respond. Just stared. Three turned to look him in the eye.
“Here. Soft pitch. Ready?”
Wren nodded slightly.
Three exaggerated the motion, down, up, launching the tiny model car in a high arc towards Wren. In the same instant, his right hand flashed, snatching his pistol from its holster, bringing it to bear on Fedor. Fluid, flawless, perfect.
Yet not fast enough.
Fedor seemed to teleport across the room, hammering his forearm into Three’s wrist, catapulting the weapon from Three’s grasp. It clattered against the wall about the same time Fedor buried his fist in the side of Three’s head, sending Three flailing backwards and sideways off the table.
Stunned, dizzy, Three managed to roll up just in time to see Fedor’s heavy boot hurtling towards his throat. He twisted, felt the wind of Fedor’s kick whistle by, not comprehending how a man that size had closed that distance so fast. No time to figure it out. Three rolled again, spun on his back, gained his feet just as Fedor’s fingers darted towards his eyes, seeking to pry them from their sockets. With his right hand, Three slapped downwards, caught Fedor’s fingers in an iron grip, sidestepped and twisted, cranking Fedor’s wrist and elbow into a locked position. Driving upwards, Three whipped his blade from its sheath with his off-hand and slashed deeply into Fedor’s exposed underarm, feeling the soft tissue and sinew sever and tear away in a gush.