Sixty-eight

 

The links opened. Bartholomew Nyquist dropped to the floor outside Interrogation Room One and covered his head with his hands. He’d been through too many dome sectionings to ever experience one on his feet again.

The building shook, and he heard the sound of falling debris. Nothing fell around him. The entire building was solid and had been fortified since Anniversary Day—at least parts of it, anyway—but that didn’t stop things from falling off desks or lights from coming out of ceilings.

He hoped the entire ceiling collapsed inside Interrogation Room One. He hoped it would fall on Uzvaan’s head and kill the bastard slowly and painfully.

But he also hoped that the atmosphere wouldn’t escape and Uzvaan’s stupid bomb wouldn’t go off.

The thought made Nyquist pop to his feet the moment the shaking stopped.

Uzvaan still sat on his chair, looking calmer than he had a right to. The mask had slipped to the ground, as had the bomb component. The air still looked yellowish, but Nyquist double-checked the reading to make sure nothing leaked from the room.

He didn’t want any change in that atmosphere. He didn’t want a bomb to go off in this building, even if the dome had sectioned.

He wanted this day to be over.

A cacophony started through his links and he welcomed it. Damage reports, updates, voices sounding stressed. He left the emergency links on, but isolated it to audio only, so that he’d hear any warning as it came in.

Instead, he went to the secure links that DeRicci had set up. Report after report of imprisoned Peyti clones. Trapped. Looking frustrated. Looking angry.

He sighed for just a moment and leaned against the wall. They’d averted the worst of it.

Now they’d have to figure out what to do with these bastards.

But they could do that. They had the clones trapped.

This wasn’t Anniversary Day times a hundred. Times five hundred.

This was bad, yes, but solvable.

And now they had prisoners. Prisoners who might know something. Prisoners who were logical and who might be amenable to making a deal to save their own skins.

He glared at Uzvaan and smiled slowly.

“Got you, you bastard,” Nyquist said softly. “We got you all.”