“Oh…man,” Yoan breathed, sounding distressed.
“Which makes the cryogenic theory a strong one,” Kristiana said. “Is all their damned tech built around keeping us contained?”
“I suspect a lot of it is,” Jai said.
“It’s barbaric.”
“So is war,” Marlow replied, his tone serene.
“If they’re set up to keep us out of it, then why are we all conscious?” I demanded.
“I don’t know,” Jai replied. “But let’s take advantage of it. Calpurnia, how are you coming along?”
She gave a great, heaving growl and I could see in my mind the tendons in her neck working as she fought to remove the bar across her shell. She could only use upper-body strength, something women were deficient in compared to men.
“Nearly,” Calpurnia said, between pants. “I felt it move.”
We listened to her straining against the bar.
This time, I heard the bar give a soft squeal.
“You’re doing it!” Yoan cried.
We all called out encouragement as Calpurnia threw herself against the bar once more. The squeal grew louder and became a metallic groan. The bar gave way with a crack that made me jump.
Calpurnia staggered out of her shell and up against the other side of the narrow room and stood breathing hard. She was a mere silhouette in the dim light, the golden white streaks in her hair the most distinct part of her.
Jai spoke calmly. “As soon as you’re ready, Calpurnia, help Marlow break out of his shell.”
Marlow was likely the strongest of us non-enhanced humans in the room. Between him and Calpurnia, they ripped the bar off his shell in a few minutes. Then they both turned to Dalton and freed him, then Lyth. Barely twenty minutes later, we were all free, and moving around the flat, cold floor, stretching and getting life back into our bodies, while Jai urged us to keep the noise down.
Dalton and Lyth headed straight for the exit. The hatch was of similar height to human doors, but just as wide as it was high. It was split in the middle. A double door, with no hinges I could see.
The two of them peered at the control panel beside the door, prodding carefully.
I examined the room itself. It was my first alien room, yet it had familiar elements. Walls, floor, ceiling. The ceiling wasn’t much higher than the pods we had been in, and was pocked with square panels. Lights, perhaps. There were other vents and protrusions that made me uneasy. A quick way to subdue a mass riot was to pour in sleepy gas. It would make sense to have outlets mounted permanently in the ceiling of a room full of prisoners.
It was a narrow room, with only the two meters of floor between the rows of pods lining each long wall. The pods extended from one end to the other and the room was a lot longer than it was wide. The line of pods on the side of the room opposite where I had been put was interrupted by the door. One short end wall was completely featureless and when I laid my hand against it, it felt like nothing familiar. Room temperature, not rough, not smooth. Not warm like carbonsteel, and the wrong color, too. Carbonsteel extruded walls were all uniformly charcoal black. Even in this dim light I could tell that the walls were a light color, possibly white.
I moved down the room to the other end, weaving between everyone. The other end had the only object besides the pods.
The wall at this end was different. When I put my hand against it, it felt cold and smooth. There wasn’t enough light to judge for sure, but I thought it might even be translucent. An observation window?
But there was a shelf beneath it. I ran my hands over the shelf and discerned the domed shape of it. The surface wasn’t horizontal. It wouldn’t hold a damn thing on that curve. The curve dipped at the back, too, instead of running straight into the wall. Underneath, the surface was flat, but sloping, although the bottom of it was mounted to the wall.
I stood up and rested my hand on the curved upper surface of the thing. Something stirred in the back of my brain, nudging me. So I ran my hands over it once more, trying to figure out what my subconscious was trying to tell me. There were two indentations, one on either side of the dome. I ran my fingertips over them, then pressed experimentally.
Nothing.
Juliyana gripped my arm. “They think they can open the door,” she said softly.
I moved over to the door. Lyth was digging at the edge of the panel with a small, blunt probe.
“Where did you get that?” I demanded.
“They didn’t empty our pockets out,” Lyth said and shrugged.
“More proof that they think we are unconscious,” Jai murmured.
“Or that they don’t know what pockets are,” I shot back. “They did take our shrivers away.”
Two things happened at the same time. The square panels in the ceiling flickered then burst into radiant, blindingly bright light. And the door split open and each side slid apart to reveal a blue asshole, carrying one of their long weapons.
—33—
No one shouted, for which I was deeply thankful.
The alien brought his weapon around to aim at us. At the same time, Dalton and Lyth lunged forward and gripped the thing’s arms and hauled it into the room.
As soon as the alien was inside, the doors began to slide shut.
Marlow threw himself forward and got between the closing doors, a hand on each.
“Short the panel!” he urged, keeping his voice down. His shoulders flexed heavily as he fought to keep the doors apart. Then he cursed and shifted his hands on the edges, for the doors had two independent layers, and the outer layer was sliding past the ends of his fingers. He got the heel of each hand settled against both layers, and strained to keep them all apart.
Lyth and Dalton wrestled the alien to the ground,
