ELLIOTT ROSS
PALLAS STATION
478, SECOND QUARTER
THREE DAYS AGO
Elliott tried to ignore the camera mounted over the door. Two days before, when he hurt so bad he could scarcely sit up, Cord had climbed a ladder to aim the blasted thing into the utility closet. Its glassy eye continued to glare balefully. Watching, waiting, though for what, Elliott couldn’t tell. Nothing would happen until they let him out, if they ever did. Nothing had happened since he’d been locked in here, except Cord dropping off food and water once in a while, and Skip coming in person to gloat that Freddie was dead.
Elliott’s jaw tightened. That lunatic could keep repeating that lie till he rotted to nothing. Words were only words. They didn’t prove Freddie was gone.
It couldn’t be true.
Elliott paced the closet’s length one more time, if it could be called pacing when he could barely limp three full strides. Exhausted, he leaned against the wall and slid to the floor.
Should’ve taken them all the way back to Pallas Station proper. Should’ve made sure Freddie had the care he needed.
But he had led them the long way to the station proper. No matter how bad off his friend had been, Freddie knew the tunnels and halls as well as Elliott did. Even as sick as Freddie had been, he would have gotten them to safety.
That little voice nagged at him again: Shouldn’t have come back for Julian.
Except he’d do it all over, given the chance. He meant his promise, years back, that he’d always be there for his brother.
Returning to convince Julian to sneak away hadn’t done either of them a micron’s worth of good, though. It had been another spectacularly stupid idea in Elliott’s long string of stupid ideas. Skip had been waiting to pummel him for stealing Linda’s human petri dishes. In front of Julian, too, punishing them both. The anger and anguish in his brother’s shouts had almost been as bad as the blows. Elliott rubbed his jaw. The bruises had to be edging from black to green.
Not that he didn’t deserve it.
The door flew open and hit the wall with a sharp crack, but Elliott didn’t startle, only raised his head.
Kirk stood there, fingering one of his voided knives. “On your feet.”
“Why?”
“You want me to make you?”
No, he didn’t. Kirk made a big show of practicing with those knives in front of everyone. How far he could throw, how fast. How deep the blade bit.
Elliott drew himself upright and hobbled out the door. After a dozen meters, he slowed, but Kirk punched his back. He tripped as pain spiked.
The tunnel brightened as they approached their control center. If Skip was really as smart as he thought he was, they would’ve moved deeper into the lava tubes, farther from the station and its roaches, closer to their small ship. Not that Elliott would suggest something that’d help.
They wouldn’t listen, anyway.
“Company’s here,” Kirk announced before muscling Elliott past the woman standing guard.
Elliott saw Julian first. His brother sat at a makeshift desk near the center of the room, well away from any exit, staring unblinkingly at the small screen, occasionally stopping to make notes on his datapad. He looked almost as rough as Elliott felt. The circles under his eyes were as livid as the bruises on Elliott’s arms and chest, and Julian obviously hadn’t shaved in a couple days. Despite the beard, his cheeks seemed hollow, though maybe that was the lighting. Those lanterns around the room’s perimeter threw weird shadows over everything.
Skip spun on his heel to face the door, and for a moment, confusion overrode Elliott’s other emotions. If Skip hated the Consortium so much, why would he be wearing that Elder’s suit? But, no, an Elder would have a top-of-the-line model. Of course Skip took the best. He had, however, painted over the Consortium eye with red. Probably used Linda’s nail polish. She always looked like her fingers were dripping with blood.
Cord left the knot of people sitting in the corner and sauntered to Skip’s side. “Been expecting you, roach-boy.”
That brought Julian to his feet, his chair scraping against concrete. If looks could kill, Kirk and Cord would have been burnt to ashes.
Skip leaned against the wall’s unfinished surface, while Cord widened his stance. The man was living proof that flunkies didn’t need brains. Linda, who still wore Kye’s stolen suit, glanced up from her computer, bumping a datapad in the process. Its corner hit a delicate gold chain, which spilled unnoticed to glisten on the floor. Kye’s necklace. He should’ve taken it back for her, but it was too late now. She was safe in the station, and he was . . . here.
“I told you I’m doing all I can,” Julian growled. “Elliott—”
“All you can?” Skip scoffed. “You were supposed to create something that targeted Consortium trogs, not killed off innocent citizens.”
Elliott couldn’t suppress a snort.
Linda scowled. “You have something to add, miner-boy?”
He shook his head. Maybe if he had the barest hint of a backbone, he would’ve reminded them that they all—himself included—were scarcely innocent.
Stupid, spineless, weak.
Guilty.
“We’ll deal with him later, Linda.” Skip’s beady eyes stayed on Julian. “You said the tech would lock onto Consortium nanodevices and was transferable by blood.”
Julian’s nostrils flared. “That’s true.”
“Actually,” Elliott clarified, “saliva—”
“Shut it.” Skip dismissed Elliott’s comment and glared at Julian. “Little Tristram nearly confirmed it before your brother stole our best chance at unraveling the problem. And now I find out that her files mysteriously went missing?”
Elliott froze. Had he ruined the files when he’d transferred the data? No one had said anything about a missing datastick or disordered information. He couldn’t have made a mistake like that, could he? That would’ve made Julian look guilty. Elliott fisted his hands—surely he hadn’t been that sloppy.
Julian’s chin lifted infinitesimally.
Sure, his brother had messed up records on Thalassa. Had he found out what Elliott had done and deleted things to throw the blame on himself? Stars, Julian wouldn’t have—
Elliott’s stomach plummeted.
He would have.
“You don’t need Tristram anyway, because it isn’t the tech,” Julian said through clenched teeth. “I told you. Somehow North had Consortium nanites in his system.”
“Greg wouldn’t have any Consortium filth in his blood.” Linda skewered Elliott with a glare. “He hated them all, even before his son was removed, even before his heart attack.”
Had Captain North ever owned a heart? Kirk’s knife reminded Elliott to keep that nugget to himself.
“Unless someone put it there,” Linda continued.
“Maybe that’s why your pal died,” Kirk said in Elliott’s ear.
Elliott held absolutely still, reminding himself that Julian’s friends—what a misnomer that was—had no way of knowing what was going on back in the civilized section of the station. They were baiting him, baiting them both. That was all. Trying to make him pay for smuggling out their prisoners.
His friends had to have made it to safety. Freddie would have led them true, and that Recorder had seemed pretty determined when she’d taken the datastick.
Skip was right about one thing, though. Kye was brilliant. Once they reached safety, she’d figure it out. And they probably had researchers up on Thalassa. Best in the system.
That was where Julian ought to be, not here. Void it, what a mess.
Skip motioned, and sharp metal suddenly pricked the skin at the base of Elliott’s skull.
Kirk’s voice went taut. “People—citizens—are dying, Ross. We need that cure.”
“If you want to save your brother,” Skip added mildly, “you’d better work harder.”
Julian’s jaw ticced. “I’ll cooperate. Let him go.”
“Let him go?” Linda sneered. “So he can run to his Consortium friends?”
“Consortium’s dead,” Cord interrupted. “Bugs. Found part of a tunic in the dust. Showed you.”
The Recorder, dead? Or that Elder?
Linda laughed. “Right. I forgot.”
What if—
What if they hadn’t made it? Bile rose in Elliott’s throat at the thought of Freddie or Kyleigh or even the Recorder and that Elder caught by roaches. He’d seen what they’d done to that man who tried to access the computer cave. Cord’s statement had to be a lie, too.
Except something told him that it wasn’t a lie after all.
“Slouching is a bad habit.” Kirk’s knife bit a little deeper, and a warm trickle ran down the back of Elliott’s neck.
Skip hadn’t taken his eyes from Julian. “Prove your commitment, Ross.”
Julian slammed his fist onto his crate-desk. “Void it all, Skip, can’t you see I’m working on it? What else do you want?”
If Julian caved, more people could die. Elliott drew the deepest breath he could without provoking Kirk to use his knife. “Julian, don’t.”
“Shut up,” Linda snarled. “It’s all your fault anyway. That Recorder you mauled probably got her blood on North somehow, and that’s what killed him.”
Skip glared daggers at Julian. “Your brother needs to face the consequences of burning out hallways to hide which way he went when he kidnapped our guests,” he said. “And you need motivation.”
At least Elliott had done that right, since Cord’s and Kirk’s teams hadn’t been able to track the escapees down. Despite the metal point between his neckbones, Elliott raised his chin. “Only consequences I see are that you’re out people to experiment on.”
A hollow grin appeared on Skip’s face. “Then it’s fair you make up for that, isn’t it?”
The knife tip left the back of his neck, and the blade was across his throat as the bite of an injector hit his carotid artery. Cold lanced through him, and his pulse roared in his ears, drowning Julian’s cry. The knife disappeared, and Kirk shoved him against the wall so hard that lights flashed like flares. His lip split when his face hit the concrete.
Julian and Skip were shouting at each other, but their words ran together like that time Elliott had fallen into the deep end of the pool and water rushed over his head. That time, Julian had pulled him out. Not now.
He had to stand, had to tell Julian it wasn’t worth it. What had Freddie said? To stop hiding behind others? To face his own mistakes? What he wouldn’t give to have Freddie tell him one more time.
Ears ringing, Elliott pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, then he used the wall to force himself upright. “Julian.”
The room fell silent, and suddenly Julian was at his side, bracing him. And somehow, just then, it was like Elliott saw his brother for the first time. Like they were equals or the same age, despite the eleven years that separated them. He met his brother’s eyes, blue locking on blue.
Sudden understanding washed over Elliott. How had he misunderstood that pinched look? Fear practically bled from his brother’s face.
“Don’t do it, Julian,” he pled.
“I have to.”
“That isn’t true, and you know it, deep down.” He swiped at the blood trickling down his chin. “It’ll be okay.”
Julian’s hushed answer seemed too loud. “I can’t see how.”
“Then I’ll see it for you. Just, don’t.”
“You’re my brother.” Julian’s voice cracked. “Family first.”
Cord stormed over and yanked Julian back, but neither spoke. Kirk dragged Elliott over to Linda’s computer and threw him against a crate.
“Well.” Skip rubbed an invisible smudge on the back of his glove. “The fever hit North in a matter of hours. You had better get to work if you don’t want your brother to die like my friend—or like his.”
Silence crept through the room.
Julian marched around the crates to his computer, and complex helixes spiraled before him, a translucent barrier of amber and cyan edged with red. Things Elliott had never understood. Never would. Not now.
Time oozed past, and a dull ache filtered through Elliott’s bones. Fatigue pulled at him, and his gaze dropped, catching on the gold chain by his feet. When no one was looking, he bent and snatched it up. The cross’s sharp edges dug into his palms.
Chills shook him, but he held fast to Kye’s necklace, as if it were a lifeline. Maybe it was. Maybe someday he’d be able to ask her about it.
Why was he so voided cold?
A cough scraped from his chest and drew Julian’s attention from the spinning display. The lines around Julian’s eyes deepened.
No, Elliott didn’t understand the helixes and equations and how machines could be as small as molecules. But he did understand this.
He mouthed, “Don’t,” and then did the one thing he could.
Holding fast to the necklace, Elliott forced his shoulders straight and smiled for his brother.