THE SECOND WE PASSED THROUGH the heavy metal doors, the guards slammed us against the wall. Still disoriented from the blast and the blow to the face, I couldn’t even muster the energy to protest as they bound my hands behind me in huge, heavy cuffs. Some sort of padding forced my hands into involuntary fists as painfully tight bonds clamped over my wrists. My shoulders instantly ached, the weight of the cuffs dragging my arms down, pulling my elbows together. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw them do the same to Cage and Rune, jamming their hands into what looked like metal boxers’ gloves. Cage’s face locked in a mask of indifference, although the muscle twitching at the corner of his eye communicated volumes. Rune didn’t even try to hide her distress, closing her eyes and breathing heavily as the manacles snapped into place. As awful as this was for me, it had to be a hundred times worse for them. They’d only recently escaped five years of prison, and a few weeks later, they were voluntarily returning to a jail cell.
If Cage and Rune could handle this, so could I. At least that was what I told myself. But as the metal bit into my wrists and added what felt like ten pounds to the drag on my arms, ice-cold panic clawed at my chest, constricting my throat. I closed my eyes, tipped my head against the wall, and pretended I was in Robo Mecha Dream Girl 5. Yumiko was taken captive, on average, once a week. She always survived, and so would I.
The thought gave me just enough courage to keep my feet as the guard behind me tugged on my cuffs to make sure they were secure. He said something to Commander Yang. It sounded like Mandarin, a language I’d become pretty comfortable with between Cage and Rune. But I couldn’t understand a word of it.
Power inhibitors, I realized numbly. Mars Mining didn’t have Omnistellar’s fancy inhibitor chips, so they’d found another way to cut off our abilities. The heavy metal cuffs suddenly seemed to double in weight even as my mind raced through corporate technology. Some sort of injection, probably. Temporary. I hadn’t felt it, which meant the cuffs contained a numbing agent. That explained the lack of feeling in my wrists, which I’d attributed to the weight of the cuffs.
“You all right?” Cage muttered as the guard grabbed our elbows and propelled us forward.
I nodded. Cage glanced past me to Rune, but she stared straight ahead, her chin jutting forward, her muscles tightly corded. I shook my head at him, telling him to leave her alone. She looked stronger than I felt. Let her get through this however she could.
At that moment, though, Rune glanced at us and gave me a small smile. She turned to include Cage, and he smiled back. It was the tiniest movement of her lips, the slightest quirk of his, but it went so far toward calming my panic. In this moment, all barriers among the three of us melted away. It’s hard to focus on much else when you’re fighting to keep your head above water.
Yang removed her gloves and helmet, passing them to a random underling. She scanned her thumb and the door connecting the corridor to the tarmac slid shut behind us. She opened the next passageway, and we stepped into the headquarters of Mars Mining Incorporated.
I’d never been in Omnistellar Concepts’ headquarters in London, but I’d seen lots of other corporate facilities when my parents did intercorporate training missions. They’d led sessions for all the big security firms: New Earth, Sphinxhead, even the closest thing we had to a competitor, Surge Networks. Some, like Omnistellar and Surge, were immaculate, run by the book and according to strict regulations. Some were a lot laxer. But I’d never seen anything off planet before.
This was the city’s central hub. We were in a huge open area, all exposed metal and hastily welded pipework. But it had been designed with something more professional in mind. Faux leather couches, worn and patched now but good quality, lined waiting areas, and huge windows revealed Mars’s expanse on one side and the city’s flashing lights on another. A thin layer of red dust covered everything. They might have sealed Mars City in an atmospheric bubble, but apparently that didn’t stop the windstorms from doing their work.
Corridors branched off the main area in four directions. I scanned the signs overhead. They hadn’t bothered labeling them in anything but English, so I didn’t even need my powers to interpret TOURISM AND CORPORATE IMMIGRATION, MARS MINING AFFAIRS, MEDICAL, and SECURITY. Unsurprisingly, Yang led us and our escorts toward the last one. Dozens of people gathered in the main area, but none of them batted an eyelash at the sight of us. Obviously, arrests weren’t uncommon here. I assumed no one had noticed the huge alien spaceship on the tarmac, not to mention the resulting explosion. There was a reason they’d directed us to a landing site at the rear of the facility.
The weight on my arms continued to grow, a steady ache spreading through my shoulders and neck. I focused on the echo of my heartbeat, battling a claustrophobic panic. Having my hands bound this way was like waiting for the air to drain from an airlock before a spacewalk combined with the sensation of first learning about my chip. I was completely and utterly trapped. I couldn’t even reach for Cage or Rune for support. Even if our hands hadn’t been bound, the guards kept us several feet away from one another. My family had never been very physical, but I’d spent a lot of time with Rune over the last few weeks, and I’d gotten used to her quick hugs, the way she tipped her head into my shoulder or poked me in the arm when she wanted my attention. The physical separation felt strange and wrong.
But the second we passed through the doors to security, a sense of familiarity settled over me. Security was just as dusty and run-down here as everything else, but things ran with a greater sense of efficiency and purpose. In a strange way, it felt like coming home. I didn’t want to consider what that said about me, that I found empty halls and blank faces more comforting than a sea of normal people. Omnistellar conditioning.
I bit my lip. How in the system, with all my love for Robo Mecha Dream Girl 5, had I never realized I was living in a corporate nightmare? That I had missed out on everything—friendship, freedom, agency—that made her life worth living? Or maybe I had realized it. Maybe that was why I loved the series so much: it reminded me of what I lacked.
Yang strode down a hall and deposited the three of us in a small room with a table and four chairs. “Wait here,” she ordered.
“Hang on a second!” I cried, bounding after her. One of the guards drew a gun, and I skidded to a halt. “What about the ship?” I demanded, enunciating each word as carefully as possible, my eyes trained on his weapon. My mouth went dry, but I forced myself to continue. “Commander, that ship is broadcasting a signal to an alien race you do not want to meet.”
“It only took a handful of those things to kill everyone on Sanctuary,” Cage added softly. “Trust me. They’d destroy Mars in hours.”
“I’ll return shortly and hear what you have to say.” Yang fixed each of us with a steady, penetrating stare. “Until then, the best thing you can do is wait patiently.”
Cage started to speak, but I shook my head at him. I knew how corporations worked. There was no point arguing with red tape. As much as I wanted the ship destroyed, I didn’t think a delay of an hour or two would make much of a difference.
At least I hoped it wouldn’t.
The door closed. I sank onto a chair awkwardly, with my hands manacled behind me, and raised my eyebrows at Cage. “I should have known better than to trust Mia and Alexei’s idea of a distraction.”
He flashed me a smile, jumping onto the table and resting his feet on a nearby chair, quick even without his powers. Even without his hands. “When you ask Mia and Alexei for a distraction, their first instinct is fire. The bigger, the better. Everything okay, meimei?”
His tone was deceptively casual when he addressed Rune, but something in it caught my attention. I twisted to find her standing in a corner, staring at the ceiling with an expression of intense concentration on her face. She ignored Cage entirely, maybe hadn’t heard him. Her gaze traveled across the ceiling, down the walls, sliding over us like we weren’t even there.
Cage and I exchanged worried looks. “Rune?” I asked.
She shook her head as if waking from a dream. “Two cameras,” she announced, gesturing with her chin. “One in the right corner, one in the left. They’re almost certainly wired for sound, but there’s a microphone under the table, too. Maybe more I can’t see.”
Of course. Even without her powers, Rune was a technological powerhouse. She’d been scouting for surveillance, exactly what I should have been doing. Instead, Cage and I had just given away Mia’s and Alexei’s names, and given Mars Mining usable evidence to prove we had planned the distraction. I kicked myself inwardly. A few weeks out of Omnistellar and I’m already forgetting my training? I expected more from myself.
I cut off the voice that followed—my mom’s voice—telling me Omnistellar expected more. Omnistellar no longer mattered, and Mom . . . Mom was dead. The events of the last few weeks, losing my mom and Rita, the horrifying alien attacks, Sanctuary’s destruction, still weighed on me. It felt nice to have the excuse to dwell on them, and that made me wary. I couldn’t afford to indulge in nice feelings. Unless I wanted to spend my life in prison (and it would be a very short life, since the aliens would no doubt arrive to end it before long), I had to be at the absolute top of my game. I studied my scuffed boots, remembering how one of my camp trainers had yelled at me for failing to polish them. At least I’d never have that problem again.
We settled to wait in silence. Rune sank to the floor, apparently exhausted, and stared straight ahead. Cage and I sat against the opposite wall. Part of me longed to drop my head on his shoulder or at least eliminate that last inch so our arms touched, but I didn’t do it. There was no sense alerting anyone watching to the nature of our relationship. Whatever that was. Actually, maybe I should alert them. Maybe they could help me figure it out. A semihysterical giggle welled inside me, and I promptly swallowed it, putting iron in my spine and following Rune’s example, fixing my gaze ahead. I forced myself to focus on the alien threat. I still had a father on Earth. I had to keep him safe. Him and the rest of humanity.
I spared a thought for the other kids. Had they escaped to Mars City safely? I particularly worried about Anya, the youngest member of the group. But Imani had taken charge of her, and if there was anyone I trusted to keep her safe, it was Imani. She had lost her little sister, who was about Anya’s age. I knew she would protect Anya with her life. I just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
We didn’t have to wait long after they realized we weren’t going to drop any more information. Commander Yang returned in the red jacket and black pants favored by Mars Mining, their logo emblazoned on her left breast pocket. Like everything on Mars, her uniform had seen better days, but she wore it with pride. Three other guards in similar uniforms entered behind her. “Let’s get you a little more comfortable,” Yang said, taking one of the chairs. She nodded and one of the guards approached, recuffing our hands in front of us. The other two stood by the locked door, weapons trained, alert for any sign of movement, especially when they uncuffed Cage. They must have taken the time to look up our files.
“Can I get you anything?” Yang asked as the three of us settled into the chairs across from her and the guards took positions by the door.
“Yeah,” said Cage. “Proof you destroyed that ship.”
Her lips quirked into a thin smile. “I meant more like a glass of water. This might be a long conversation.”
“We don’t need anything,” I said. “And you don’t have time for a long conversation.”
Yang examined us thoughtfully, then turned to Rune. “You’re very quiet.”
Rune shrugged. “If you won’t listen to them, you’re not going to listen to me.”
“All right.” Yang slid a security stick onto the table between us and set it to record. “Tell me everything.”
There was no point arguing with corporate policies. She wasn’t going to take any action without knowing the facts, and part of me understood corporations well enough not to blame her. As quickly as I could, with the occasional input from Cage, I told her what had happened on Sanctuary. As I described the events, my voice echoed back at me as if through a tunnel, hollow and disconnected. Everything made sense: the distress signal, Rita’s absence, the prison break, the alien attack. But the words seemed devoid of life. Even as I recounted how the aliens tore through the station’s hull like paper, even as I listed the dozens, the hundreds of dead, none of the fear and terror and urgency came through. It sounded like I was composing a story for a particularly boring English assignment.
Obviously, I didn’t explain everything. I didn’t mention my sense of betrayal at learning that my parents had chipped me to disguise my own powers. I didn’t mention how many prisoners had survived to escape into Mars City. And I sure as hell didn’t mention the moment when my shot went wide and killed Matt. The thoughts followed close on the words, though, threatening to break through the wall of detachment I’d created. I forced myself to turn to the problem at hand, which offered plenty of fuel for emotion all on its own. “Those things are on their way here right now. They’re following that beacon, and it’s going to lead them right to you.”
“Of course, I understand your concerns,” Yang said smoothly. “We’ll do our very best to find and eliminate the signal.”
Find and eliminate the signal . . . My heart plummeted right through my feet. My lips moved, forming soundless words until I realized I wasn’t breathing and sucked in a gasp of air. “You’re not going to destroy the ship,” I managed, my voice little more than a whisper.
She smiled thinly. “Kenzie, be reasonable. That ship is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. It represents billions of credits on its own, not to mention the potential advances to weaponry and space travel. Do you really think the corporation would allow me to destroy it?”
Fear surged over the border into anger. “You lying little—”
“I suggest you don’t finish that sentence.” Steel entered her tone. “I promised you nothing. My subordinate had no authority to bargain, and I won’t be held responsible for his words. And even if there was an agreement in place, you voided it with your stunt outside. Now tell me, Ms. Cord: Exactly how many anomalies are running loose in my city?”
Cage snorted. “I thought you were going to round them all up in a matter of minutes. Not as easy as you anticipated?”
She leaned forward, pushing the security stick aside and resting her elbows on the table. “Do you three understand exactly how much trouble you’re in here? Omnistellar Concepts has been alerted to your presence, and they are very interested in speaking with you. Your crimes are going to warrant a lot worse than a cushy stint on a prison like Sanctuary. You have maybe twenty-four hours before they get an operative here, at which point it’ll be beyond my power to help you. Think on that for a while.” Abruptly, she pushed back and nodded to the guards. “Take them to their cells. We’ll see how they feel in a few hours.”
Reality settled over me like a blanket. She was leaving. She was going to walk out that door and not destroy the ship. It would keep broadcasting its signal, because if Rune couldn’t find it, Yang and her team sure as hell wouldn’t. I scrambled for words, but darkness descended around me, claws and screams and terror. “You have to destroy that ship!” I shouted, all of my carefully laid plans of earning her trust and convincing her vanishing in a surge of adrenaline. I had no idea how far away the aliens were or how fast they traveled. Memories assaulted me, the creatures screaming in triumph as they brandished Tyler’s mutilated body, the thud of my own heart as I dodged their flashing claws. “They could be here before Omnistellar, do you understand? If they can destroy a space station, they can destroy a colony!”
“If you’re telling the truth about what happened, and if these so-called aliens are on their way, a prepared Mars security force will be more of a match for them than a station full of unarmed teenage delinquents.”
If only that were true. She didn’t understand, and it was my fault. I couldn’t communicate it. Even with my power, I couldn’t have explained the terror of becoming prey, stalked on our own station, knowing that every step might lead to an alien shriek and a claw tearing through your flesh. And before I found the words to describe it, Yang turned her back and walked away.
“Yang!” I roared, lunging after her. I didn’t know what I was going to do, only that I had to make her listen. We couldn’t let what had happened on Sanctuary happen here. I’d die first. “Wait! There’s more to—!”
The guard grabbed me and shoved me. I rebounded and chased after her. The guard jerked his stun gun into play, aiming it straight at my chest. Agony tore through me as my muscles spasmed, sending me twitching to the floor, my teeth snapping shut on my tongue. A sea of blackness surged against me as two of the guards grabbed my elbows and hauled me to my feet. I struggled to speak, but my brain responded sluggishly, fighting the aftereffects of the stun.
Dragging me between them, they prodded Rune forward, leading us in one direction—and Cage in another.