Blake may not, according to Kira, have any social skills whatsoever, but that did not mean she was oblivious to a tremor in a voice, sweat beading on an upper lip. Jeremy wanted some reassurance that the Facility wasn’t going to collapse on itself. That they weren’t going to be buried alive or snuffed out by toxic smoke rising through the ventilation system.
‘You’re not going to die, if that is what’s concerning you,’ she said. Her gaze drifted to Perry in the compartment alongside hers. He lay still, surrounded by an array of machines that kept him alive. Beyond him lay Gren. The Syranian’s compartment held only one piece of equipment: a narrow tube of translucent piping that haloed the crown of his head. A rainbow of colours filtered through the tube. Gren’s injuries were covered by a foil blanket tucked up high around his neck. His body, no doubt, had already begun to heal at an accelerated rate.
‘No, Miss Beckworth,’ Jeremy sat back, needle and thread dangling, ‘That’s not what . . .’
‘Of course it’s what you wanted to know. Can you please finish up? I have things to do.’
Speaking so harshly to someone with a needle poised over your skin was perhaps not wise, but Blake was too distracted to curb her tongue. The damage to the carapaces was to her advantage. The list of repairs they required would ensure she was not thrown into a holding cell anytime soon, despite the captain’s reassurances that would happen if she so much as blinked oddly. Bottom line was, he needed her. The Meld had played havoc with the inhibitor system, torn ceramic eyes from sockets, ripped faux skin from limbs, and made the gallu far from ready for their public close-up. Cosmetic enhancement was required. And she was the senior make-up artist.
Jeremy returned to the job at hand. Though Blake’s hand had been numbed, the last few digs of the needle seemed to penetrate deeper than before. She looked away, gritting her teeth against the odd sensation.
Just as the captain was gambling on allowing her some freedom, Blake was taking chances too. She could have fled in the chaos, but she remained and assisted with bringing the inhibitors back online. Keeping herself visible, so that Rossiter would have a chance to get out. And find Kira.
The serum Captain Nex had ordered Cym to inject her with had been far more powerful than anything human made. It had ripped truths from her—some terrible and personal— but the invasion only went so deep. She had ordered Kira to go to Melgrove, that much was true. Blake had ordered her sister to a place that held memories rich with pain, and hedged everything on the notion that Kira would not take one step in the place. That was the one truth the captain had not stolen from her.
‘And we’re done.’ Jeremy wasted no time scooping up his equipment and striding from the compartment. He advised her guards that she was ready, and the two women turned in near-perfect unison.
‘Wait,’ Blake said. ‘I want to speak with Cym before we go back down. I have some questions for him about the repairs.’
The larger of the two women, one Blake recalled passing once or twice in hallways, took little convincing and directed her angst-faced colleague to return to door-guarding duty. Whether they believed the official company line that the Syranians were genetically enhanced soldiers, or whether they leaned towards the rumour of extraterrestrial origins, one thing certain was that these guards would follow Captain Nex’s directives in Tamas’s absence. Blake’s brain and technological prowess may ensure that their paychecks were covered by incoming contracts, but her position of power faded to nothing in the face of Nex’s authoritative air. Blake was certain Captain Nex was capable of intimidating even the gods he and Tamas spent so much time praying to, if he so wished.
Blake rose to her feet, flexing her fingers. The black tiles beneath her seemed to rise and dip like onyx waves. She clutched the edge of the bed.
‘Blake? Is everything all right?’
The question was getting tedious, and considering Cym was doing the asking, it was a ridiculous one at that.
‘No, Cym. I’m fairly certain nothing is all right.’
To begin with, she’d sent Kira away with a being that seriously encroached the limits of Blake’s realm of acceptability. Now Level eleven was under emergency power after the Final Meld had released an energy surge large enough to register on the Richter scale. Not to mention one of the carapaces had torn an elevator shaft to shreds, thanks to a ludicrous embellishment she was entirely responsible for. Blake had given her metal angels wings— Telteriun wings— daydreaming of future military contracts that may evolve from her concept designs.
She was not going insane. She had arrived some time ago.
Cym closed the compartment door. A sickly pink gash marked his forehead, and burn marks covered one of his hands. But the damage was already half of what it had been when she’d rushed to his side in the level eleven chamber.
‘How is Tamas?’ Still leaning against the bed for support, Blake peered around Cym. The crowd had left Tamas’s bedside. His face was cleaned of blood, revealing a disturbingly pale pallor. His skin tone dipped beneath its usual olive hue, the loss of blood draining the colour to a greyish-white. His broken wrist was strapped, and bandages covered the deep gash on his head. In light of the maelstrom he’d been at the centre of, he’d gotten off lightly.
‘His blood pressure was extremely high, his respiratory rate accelerated, but that’s been contained. The human surgeon will tend to his broken bone, and that will in time heal.’ While Cym spoke, his eyes drifted not to Tamas but rather towards
