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“No,” I said, ten minutes later. “A thousand times, no. Walk me out an airlock. Shoot me now, but this?”—and here I gestured wildly at the screen—“This is not happening.”
“Come on, Cutter.”
Mack took a step towards me.
“No,” I said, and took a step back.
I stroked my right hand down my left arm, then my left hand down my right arm, and backed up another step. I might have said my guts were churning, but they weren’t; they’d turned to ice. I was going to vomit ice-chunks all over Mack’s nice clean floor, if I couldn’t calm down.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
“I can’t do this,” and I despised the quiver that ran through my voice. “Not this.”
And I backed up the two steps I needed to get me to the door. Heavens knew where I thought I was going to run to. I slapped the panel meant to open the door. Nothing happened. I danced back a step, giving the panel another smart smack as I did so.
Still it didn’t open.
“Goddamnitall!” I shouted, and Mack was on me.
He pounced, sliding in sideways and scooping me into the circle of his arms. I turned and faced his chest, and he wrapped me tighter.
“I can’t do this,” I said. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”
He didn’t try to do anything, just held me tight, until I wound down.
“You can do this,” he said, holding me still. “You can, and you will.”
Why the Hell he should care was beyond me, but he didn’t move, and he didn’t say anything. Of course, he didn’t let me go, either. I just stood there, registering two things: first, that he had bent forward to grab me; the second, that he was incredibly warm... and strong... and far too aware of the tricks I’d need to break free.
When I hadn’t said anything for over a minute, he sighed, and straightened up.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go over it, again.”
I tried to kick free, but his arms tightened, crushing the breath out of me, so I let myself go limp.
“Right,” he said, carrying me back to the table, and carefully settling me in a chair beside his own. “Take a good long look at the map. Tell me how many ways there are to get in.”
I knew what he was doing, but I went along, anyway. You never knew; I might find an alternative to what they were suggesting. At the end of an hour, even I had to admit there really was no other way in.
By the end of an hour, I also had to admit that there wasn’t anyone else.
I slumped in the chair, and rested my head against my right hand, leaving the left on the table in front of me.
“So, you agree, then?” Mack said, and I sighed.
I wanted to disagree. I very badly wanted to disagree. There was no way in Hades I wanted this job. Not in all the worlds.
“Isn’t there anybody else?” Even to myself, I sounded tired.
Mack draped an arm around my shoulders, and I let him. In anyone else, I would have thought it a play, but Mack had made it pretty clear he wasn’t that way inclined.
“We could find someone else,” he admitted, “but you’re the one who needs to pay off a massive training debt, and there’s a pretty hefty bonus attached to this job.”
That was news to me.
“How big a bonus?” I asked, then added, “And how much of it is mine?”
Mack named a sum that would take out half the training debt in one fell swoop, and I have to admit I was pretty tempted.
“But...” I said.
“So, you’ll do it, right?” he said, and it wasn’t really a question.
I felt his arm tighten around my shoulders, and turned my head. It was all the time he gave me, pulling the slim-bladed dagger from its sheath under the table, and plunging it into my chest before I could do more.
I wanted to scream, but there wasn’t time. I wrapped my hands around the hilt, as he swung me up out of the chair and carried me out the door. Even then, I couldn’t quite process what he’d done. As we hit the corridor, I realized he hadn’t told me just how much of that amazing sum was mine.
All of it, I decided, or I was going to make his life hell.
If I survived.
I’ll give him credit: he had it all planned. The medics met him in the corridor, the stasis pod already prepped. I was still awake when they closed the lid, but I was pretty sure I imagined the look of desperate concern on Mack’s face, just before the world went away.
