Steel Frame, page 25
We take a few turns, Hail holding me upright while Folau scouts ahead. He’s light on his feet, and he balances his steps better than Hail could. She feels stronger, but she’s used to throwing heavy metal around with thoughts and fingertips.
Together, they work us through the maze, and find us a light at the end of the tunnels. Just before it, a shadow that could only be Salt. He waves us up, holds the door as we approach.
I make out a shape slumped in a chair near the front; the clerk that’s supposed to be watching the door. He stirs as we pass, turns in the seat, but doesn’t make it all the way around. Salt waves us past, waiting to be sure that no one’s tripping the alarm.
With that, we’re through the last door and out into the cold air. I blink at the sudden brightness. It’s dim by daylight’s standards, but enough to paint everything silver. Hail and Folau don’t give me long enough to get my bearings; they’re jogging as soon as there’s open deck beneath their feet, and running once Salt has closed the hatch behind us.
“Left here,” says Hail, and they flip us around the corner. A right, another left, and we’re standing on a monorail platform. A chill wind whips at us, and headlamps dawn in the distance. “Just on time.”
The train pulls alongside, hunkers down long enough for Hail and Folau to shuttle me in through one of its doors and into a seat. Salt rocks the car under his weight, eclipsing the lights above me.
They pull a silver blanket from a shell’s emergency kit.
“Here.”
I don’t realise how cold I am until Hail and Salt pull it across my shoulders. They sit down on either side of me, adding a little warmth, and bracing me against the sudden well of acceleration. Folau drops down across from us, slumping down in the seat and grinning like an idiot.
Someone else is already sitting, two seats up. I don’t have enough in me to do much more than stare. He raises an eyebrow at me and tips his head.
“Hello, Rook.”
I stare at him, trying to figure out where I’ve heard that voice before.
“Remember me?” says Andrade.
SEVENTEEN
I’VE NEVER MET a Werewolf before. Not that I’d have known it.
The first time I met him, Andrade didn’t seem to be anything more than he was putting on. He had the look of every tired sergeant I’ve ever met, and the crew around him gave no sign that he was out of place. He had the body language just right, measured out exactly the right amount of sarcasm when his nuggets started acting up.
He was using decontam for cover, and I see that now. The Juno and I had come back from a sortie on alien soil, covered ourselves in the stuff, and gone toe-to-toe with abnormal opposition. By rolling in with the cleanup crew, acting as if he was just another part of the process, he got an eye on me before they washed us off, and a moment to check if I knew anything more than what we’d called in to Tower. It’s the sort of thing Werewolves are supposed to do; making sure that secrets are kept, and watching out for anything that might hurt the company’s interests. In NorCol space, that means hunting moles and plugging leaks; out here, it could mean anything.
There was a Sigurd distress beacon two blocks over, and a jockey dead with only a garbled explanation. Of course there was a Werewolf checking in.
Looking at him, I still wouldn’t know it. He’s wearing a jockey’s flight suit with all the fittings, and every tab and unit marker you’d expect, a service term to match the lines on his face. His armour has its paint worn away around the edges, and his sidearm has obviously seen some use. For someone who does most of their hunting indoors, it sure looks like he flies a lot.
He also looks like he’s never touched a shell. He’s got none of the quivers, and his eyes are sharp, not a moment lost to focus. There isn’t the delay between thought and action, or any sign that he’s used to waiting on a machine. If anything, he’s got the bottled energy I’d normally expect in a marine, every movement measured and precise.
He catches me staring, and immediately his eyes adjust, like they’re working to bring me into focus. A second more, and they’re glassy-sharp again.
A sergeant, and then a jockey. An admin drone, or whatever else he needs to be. A company shape-shifter, just out of sight.
Above all else, I think Andrade might be a con. Scars trace the sides of his face and creep out below his jaw, too fine for gunshot wounds or shrapnel or crash damage, but too raw for clean-room surgery. They’ve bubbled in patches, darker than the sandy skin around them—infection caught him before they could fully heal. They map where someone pulled his implants out, rough and hasty, before he and his Werewolf ’ware could do NorCol’s systems any harm. Too valuable to leave that way, it seems.
I’m still staring when the scenery skips behind his head. I’m expecting one of the ship’s vast caverns to open up behind him, distant ceilings like faraway skies, but the walls pull close on either side of the train, rushing past like cast-iron crags.
We pass narrow platforms and airlocks made to take one person at a time. On a ship like Horizon, they’re completely out of place. Everything is built to take as many employees as possible, and to keep them from trampling each other when the decompression alarms start shrieking.
If I couldn’t see NorCol’s markings on every flat surface, I’d have thought I was riding a rail through somewhere else.
Maybe I am still dreaming.
“Rook?” Hail shifts in her seat, meets my eyes. “Are you all right?”
I blink. “I’m fine.” It’s a lie, and she probably knows it as well as I do.
I aim a glare at the Werewolf. There’s something I need to know. “You said you knew it.”
“Knew what?” he asks, voice polished to a sheen.
“You said you knew my bird. That day, after I landed, you said you knew the Juno. Was it true?”
“He did,” says Hail. She nods across the car. “He was my contact. He was the one who got Lear into the airducts. He’s another stray, just like me.”
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND. Why are we doing this now?”
Why not tomorrow? Or the day after that? Any time long enough for me to feel a little less like death. Even with the stim bubbling in my stomach, I’m a long way from flying.
Hail shakes her head. “We don’t have much choice. It’s now, or not at all.”
“Just call Tower and—”
“And what?”
I frown at her. “Ask for a window, obviously.”
Salt leans in. “There isn’t anyone to talk to, Rook. Tower’s turning itself inside-out.”
“What? Why?”
Hail growls. “Horizon froze, and it wasn’t just Tower. This whole ship seized up at the first sign of trouble, and now they’re locking it down. True NorCol style; if you can’t trust someone else to screw it up, best you screw it up yourself.”
“But the hollows are gone.” It’s a moment before I realise that Andrade is watching us, listening. It’s the first time I’ve used the word where someone else could hear it.
He doesn’t skip a beat. “They are,” he says, watching me, “thanks to you, but that doesn’t mean anything yet. I’m the only other person on this boat who has any idea what happened, and that isn’t saying much.”
I blink. “Someone said that there was a line into the hangar. That was you?”
He nods. “I was assigned to look in on Sigurd’s little pod, but when Hail pulled her little stunt”—Hail glares at him, but he deflects it—“I didn’t know who was responsible at first, so I had to treat it as if there were hostile actors involved. I took precautions. When you were sortied to respond to the attack, I needed eyes on it. You fought well.”
It tugs at my chest. “What did you see?”
“That we’re in more trouble than anyone realises. I leaked the feed to Tower, and to some of the few remaining brass that actually live on this damn ship. I banked on someone picking it up, actually doing something to solve the problem, but all it did was spook them. They’re running scared, lashing out.”
“Couldn’t you just have told them?”
He almost smiles. “You don’t know what Werewolves are, do you? Tower doesn’t know who I am any more than decontam does.” For half a heartbeat, I can see how tired he is. “Even if I took this higher in person, kicked their damn doors down, Bridge is nonfunctional. They wouldn’t understand. I’d have to pull them out of their bottles first.”
“Christs. You mean—”
“That Horizon is dead from the neck up?” He almost chuckles. “Would you be surprised?”
I suppose I wouldn’t. “And so you need us to follow the beacon?”
“I do. I need to know how Sigurd fits into this. I need to know what their connection is to the hollows. If that beacon leads back to the Demiurge, if that ship is compromised, I need to know how much of the company has survived.”
“Why us? Why don’t the ’Wolves go?” The response is knee-jerk, with a little more acid than I’d intended.
He watches me for a moment. “How many of us do you think there are? On this ship, specifically.”
According to NorCol legend, it’s one in ten, maybe as much as one in five. One in three, if you listen to the lifers when they’ve got a couple of beers in them. A Werewolf looks like every other employee until they’ve got their masks up and strange weapons in their hands.
“A thousand? Two?”
“Six.” He lets it sink in. “Including me.”
Even Hail gawks at that.
“Horizon is a loss. A pet project for someone who died two centuries ago. There are less than half as many full-timers on this boat as there are cons, and the numbers are shifting every day. Soon, it’ll just be us.”
“Why don’t they just pull it out? You don’t just leave a dreadnought to die.”
“They’ve been trying to leave the froth since day one. Horizon is too fragile to make the translation back. It’ll break her back.”
“So what? They’re just hanging us out to dry? Leaving us to the hollows?”
“Not if I have anything to do with it.” His jaw sets hard. “But I can’t risk leaving, not until I know more. There are too many fires that need putting out.”
I look out the corner of my eye, surprised when it doesn’t hurt. “Hail?”
“I’m still trying to get my head around it too, but I don’t see any other option. It’s this, or spend the next few months tied down and waiting to die. Waiting for the Demiurge to pounce on us.” She looks grim. “You cleared those things out, but they should never have made it on board. Shouldn’t even have made it into line of sight. We’re paying for it now.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Tower is taking it out on the regulars.” She looks down at her hands. “They want every shell accounted for. Anyone without an assignment is putting in for inspection. Then there’ll be drills and readiness. And then more drills. Weeks, maybe months.”
“While the knuckledraggers go full overhaul,” says Folau. “Take everything apart and put it back together again. It’ll be months.”
“And we don’t have months.” She takes aim at me. “Longer, if they lock you down as well.”
I frown. “What? Why would they do that?”
“You survived two contacts with unknown actors, unknown threat vectors.” Andrade looks at me like he’s trying to tunnel in. “We aren’t leaving in the middle of the night by preference.”
“They wouldn’t find anything,” I growl.
“I know. Believe me, I know.” He pauses. “The point is: we have no idea how many more of those things are out there. Worse, we don’t know where they are, what they’re doing, or how they spread.”
But I can’t shake the itch. “And so you came to us?”
“For the same reason NorCol is thinking of dissecting you, shell and jockey, mind and body. You’re the only one who’s tangled with a hollow and come out in one piece. Whatever they had, you didn’t catch it.”
I glance at Hail.
Andrade follows the look. “Yes, she told me, right after you told her. You fought the infection off, and that makes you our best chance of getting eyes on the source, if there is one. Maybe even some kind of explanation.” He rolls his head around on his shoulders. “More importantly, you’ve got experience, and a running start.”
“You want us to follow the beacon.”
He nods. “It had a list of locator frequencies. Something to help you find your way back to sender.”
“I remember.” I glance back at Hail. “I also remember that she filed them off.”
“I did what I had to do.” She settles back in her seat. “If I hadn’t, we’d have lost it all to a full-timer with half the brains and none of the reason. And he”—she nods to Folau—“wouldn’t have had free rein looking for them.”
“It was difficult enough,” he adds. “As it turns out, the frequencies weren’t Sigurd standard.”
Andrade laughs. “I saw those numbers. They aren’t anything standard. If I had to guess, that beacon was used by someone deep-level. Special operations, maybe. Or high-tier R&D. Someone with answers, if we’re lucky.”
“Whoever they were,” says Hail, “you were right. They were trying hard to get found.”
“But you traced them back?” I ask.
“No,” says Folau. “It isn’t possible from Horizon. The bands are full of shit and noise from the Eye.” He jerks a thumb at the Werewolf. “Hail’s friend here couldn’t reach them either. Too far away. Too much interference.”
“Which is why you’re going to go and see for yourselves,” says Andrade. The train slows, and he looks out the window. “We’re here.”
I have to crane to see what he’s looking at. A little line of floodlights in the distance, and a platform just like the others we’ve passed along the way. If we were anywhere else, there’d be a giant stencil telling you which line you were on, and which of Horizon’s giant hangars you happen to be passing through. This ship is a tangled mess at the best of times, but it’s even worse without something to give you a sense of place. The Werewolf seems pretty sure of himself, but this line doesn’t have a name, and nor does the platform.
Hail is already on her feet, fingers hooked into the loops that fall from the ceiling. She doesn’t know where we are either, I’d bet, but she takes it in her stride. “How long have we got?”
“Ten minutes,” says Andrade. His eyes light up for a second, and the car settles on its track.
She nods, swivels around, and leans over me. “Are you sure you’re up to this? It’s going to be some hard flying.”
“You got any others?”
“Jockeys?” A smile tugs at her. “A handful, if I had to go looking.”
“But no one you could explain this to.”
She shrugs. “It would be difficult.”
“And even then—”
“—I’d still have my doubts? Yes. Hell, I’d be looking over my shoulder every goddamn minute.”
“Get me out of this fucking chair, Hail.”
There’s a real smile, just for a moment, gone as quickly as it arrives, and replaced by something grim. She sets a boot against my seat, locks a hand around my wrist, and hauls me upright. She hovers for a second, hands spread to catch me. I don’t blame her; I’m half expecting a closer look at the deckplates myself, and I’m surprised when I hold just fine.
“Tell me what we’re going to do.”
Hail steps to one side, revealed a heavy metal lockbox near the front of the car. “First, we get dressed.”
Folau crouches near the locker, flicks it open. Inside is a pile of flight suit, armour, and a helmet that can only be mine. Hail and Salt are already popping buttons, and I have to work to keep pace. Folau funnels us parts, and we lean on each other as we gear ourselves up, the way that jockeys do. The others help me through the last steps. I’m out of breath and drowning in sweat, but my suit warms around me, channels the clammy fluid away. Basic systems hold me upright, take the load off the battered muscle underneath.
I’m feeling more alive with every buckle and seal, more like myself as the steel closes over me and my jacks begin to merge with the suit. “What comes after this?” I manage.
“Simple. We get in our saddles and fly out when Andrade does.”
“I’ve marked you all as escorts,” he says. “Anyone calls in, you direct them to me. We’re a deep surveyor and escorts for the day. Pre-existing arrangement.”
Hail flexes her fingers, tugs at her gloves. “Tower’s too busy having seizures to look too closely anyway.”
“We’re a long way from our blocks, Hail. A long way from our shells.”
She cocks her head at the Werewolf. “We are.”
“It’s been taken care of,” says Andrade. “This part, anyway. Like I said, pre-existing arrangement.”
“SOMEONE HAS TO keep this place from sinking.”
They’re Folau’s last words before the train pulls off again. He knocks a salute off his eyebrow and spreads out across the seats. We watch him go, three jockeys balancing on the platform edge while Andrade whispers to the door, waiting for his passcodes to take.
He looks back at us after a second or so. “Helmets,” he says. He’s got one of his own, black and sleek.
The rest of us trade glances. Normally, we’d wait until we were planning on connecting to our machines, clear of anything that we have to navigate with our bobble-heads on. Horizon is bigger than any other ship in NorCol’s fleet, but it’s got its fair share of cramped compartments and low ceilings. Plenty of opportunities to chip our paint and put sparks across our eyes. We’ve all got scars on our helmets, and the same goes for any jockey with more than a couple of hours in the saddle. We’ll hit our heads on anything, give us half a chance.
The look Andrade gives us doesn’t leave much space to manoeuvre, and we don’t argue. We buckle up, cycle our little locks, and wait for our helmets to finish warming up. We check each other over, tightening clasps and folding the last of our armour into place. We shake ourselves out, feeling our skin crawl as the suits adjust themselves around us. We join our nets and signal A-OKs.
