The Domino Pattern

“He has seated himself on the curve couch,” Sarge reported. “He is working on the pressurization tank’s valve.”

I felt the blood freeze in my veins. Kennrick wasn’t supposed to be on the curve couch. He was supposed to be on the bed, like he’d been every other time I’d come in here. He was supposed to be concentrating so hard on his new oxygen tank and the Spider hanging outside his window that he wouldn’t notice the divider open the crucial few centimeters I needed.

But he wasn’t on the bed. He was on the curve couch, which would start retracting into the divider the instant I touched the control. There was no way in hell he could possibly miss that.

The Modhri must have sensed my sudden turmoil. “What is it?” he murmured.

“I need to open the divider without him noticing,” I said grimly. “And I need him in front of the gap where I can see him, not way off to the side the way he is now.”

“I see,” the Modhri said calmly. “Do you still have the bypass mimic you took from Logra Emikai?”

“Uh …” I floundered, caught off balance by the sudden change in subject. “Yes, I’ve got it. Why?”

“Give it to me,” the Modhri said, holding out his hand.

I stared at him. What in the world was he up to? “It doesn’t work on Spider locks,” I said.

“I don’t need it to,” the Modhri said, his hand still outstretched. “You wish the Human Kennrick in front of the opening. I will make that happen.”

Trusting the Modhri, the words whispered through my mind. But time was running out, and I didn’t have anything better to suggest. Digging the flat gray box out of my pocket, I handed it over.

“Thank you,” the Modhri said, fingering it thoughtfully. “Stay quiet, and stand well clear.” He looked at the defender. “You, too,” he added.

The defender seemed to think it over. Then, with obvious reluctance, he stepped all the way back to the compartment door. I took advantage of the moment to climb off the curve couch and press myself against its end, a meter from the wall where the divider would be opening.

The Modhri waited until we were set, then stepped over to the divider control. “Stand ready,” he told me, and touched the control.

The divider started sliding open. It had barely cleared the wall when I heard an explosive curse from the other side of the widening gap. “What the—? Compton? Compton, damn you—”

“Not Compton,” the Modhri called hastily through to him. “I am Osantra Qiddicoj. I have come to make you a bargain.”

“What the—how did you get in there?” Kennrick snarled, and I could hear the subtle shift in the sound of his voice as he moved away from the collapsing curve couch.

“With this,” the Modhri said, poking the corner of the bypass mimic through the still-opening divider. I tensed, but almost before I could start to wonder if he’d forgotten about Bayta he touched the control again, stopping the divider at just the right position. “It’s a duplicate of the locksmith’s bypass mimic Compton took from Logra Emikai. I offer it to you as part of a—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Kennrick demanded. “The damn thing doesn’t work on Spider locks, Compton said”

“Compton was wrong,” the Modhri countered, wiggling the mimic as if to emphasize his words. “I bought this spare from Logra Emikai, who showed me its secret. I offer it to you now in exchange for your secret of bringing death aboard the Quadrail.”

Abruptly, he snatched the mimic out of the gap, and I caught a glimpse of Kennrick’s fingertips as he grabbed for the device. “Give it here,” Kennrick snarled.

“Not until you swear to the bargain,” the Modhri said firmly. “With this you can move to a different room, where the Spider attacking you cannot—”

And right in the middle of a sentence, he collapsed abruptly into a heap on the floor, the mimic clattering against the deck as it fell from suddenly nerveless fingers.

“Nice try, Compton,” Kennrick called from the other side of the divider. “You really think I’m that stupid?”

I pressed harder against the divider, gesturing to Sarge to likewise keep silent and motionless. Kennrick had obviously used the kwi on Qiddicoj …but with Bayta still unconscious, I knew for a fact the kwi hadn’t worked. Qiddicoj was faking, lying supposedly unconscious with the perfect bait lying millimeters from his hand.

“I know you’re in there, Compton,” Kennrick bit out, raising his voice over the scraping sound of the defender outside his window. “Come out right now, or I’m going to start cutting off your girlfriend’s fingers.”

I clenched my teeth, my eyes riveted on the mimic. Because it was the perfect bait, and Kennrick had to know that. If he could get it to work on Spider locks, then every compartment in these two cars would be open to him. He could move himself and his hostage back and forth between rooms, resetting his traps and strangle lines, keeping himself clear of whatever the defenders tried to do to pin him down or root him out.

“You hear me, Compton?” Kennrick called again. “Show yourself. Now.”

Only the Modhri had forgotten one crucial detail. The rigged vestibule had been sealed by means of a purely mechanical pressure lock, with nothing that a key or bypass mimic could do anything about. If Kennrick paused long enough to wonder how Qiddicoj had gotten through that, this whole house of cards would collapse.

“Compton?” Kennrick called. The light coming through the gap shifted subtly, and I had the sense that he was now pressing his eye against the opening, trying to see as much of the room as he could. “Compton? Last chance before I start cutting her.”

I took a careful breath. He was going for it, I realized with cautiously rekindled hope. He was still calling for me, but he was no longer sure I was really here. Either he hadn’t thought about the vestibule question, or he didn’t realize the pressure lock couldn’t be triggered remotely, or he was desperate enough to take the risk.

I gathered my feet under me, ready to push off the partially collapsed curve couch the minute he made his move. I would have only one shot at this …

And then, without warning, Kennrick’s left hand darted through the gap and grabbed the mimic.

I shoved off the couch toward him, knowing even as I did so I would be too late.

But as Kennrick had mistakenly written the Modhri out of his calculations, so had I. Even as Kennrick’s fingers closed around the mimic, Qiddicoj’s limp hand came suddenly to life, darting up to lock itself around Kennrick’s wrist.

Kennrick gave a startled curse, twisting his arm against Qiddicoj’s thumb to try to break the grip. Qiddicoj held on gamely, but Kennrick was stronger and had better leverage, and half a second later he was free.

But a half second was all I needed. I reached them as Kennrick started to pull the mimic back through the gap, locking my own fingers around the man’s wrist with all the strength adrenaline-flooded muscles could manage.

Kennrick yelped in pain as I yanked his arm hard toward me, slamming his shoulder against the edge of the divider, his face contorted with rage as he glared through the gap at me. “I knew it,” he spat. “Clever, Compton. Now go to hell!” Lifting his right arm over his head, he pointed the kwi at me and jammed his thumb against the trigger.

“Sorry, Kennrick,” I gritted. “Afraid you’re out of bullets.”

His face twisted even more viciously as he thumbed the kwi again. “So now what?” he retorted as he lowered his arm. “You still can’t come in here without killing her. What are you going to do, stand there holding my wrist all the way to Venidra Carvo?”

“No,” I said as I reached with my left hand around to the small of my back. The worst rule-breaking of all, I reflected, a request which Sarge had nearly vetoed even with both Bayta and me pleading my case. “I’m going to dispense justice.”

And with that, I brought my Beretta around to the front, the weapon that had been in a lockbox beneath the train until I’d talked Sarge into sending his partner to retrieve it. Pressing it against Kennrick’s side beneath the arm I was holding, I pulled the trigger.

The blast was deafening in the enclosed space. For a second Kennrick just stared at me, his eyes wide and disbelieving. Then his legs collapsed, and he fell to the floor, landing with his torso twisted awkwardly against the wall as I continued to grip his wrist.