Chapter 30 Reunion station
The path we took was narrow enough that we ran single file. Emergency strobes flashed red through the vents overhead. Every few seconds the light vanished completely, plunging the tunnel into darkness before returning again. The riot above us was still spreading. Even down here we could hear it through the walls.
Tasha led the way without slowing once as Orin stayed behind her, and I followed. Matt covered the rear with his pistol still drawn.
The tunnel dipped lower beneath the district. Pipes crowded the ceiling. Condensation dripped steadily onto the metal grating beneath our boots. Somewhere nearby a pressure valve kept shrieking at intervals, like something trapped inside the walls.
Nobody spoke until we crossed the second maintenance junction.
Matt suddenly stopped walking. "You notice we're running deeper underground with two fugitives and no actual plan?"
Tasha looked back briefly. "Do we need one right now?"
"Who are you to speak?"
Orin ignored us and forced open a maintenance door using an override strip from his sleeve. Sparks burst from the lock before the door slid sideways.
Matt stared at Orin while walking. "You always carry illegal station bypasses around or are we bonding tonight?"
Orin finally answered without looking at him. "You always talk this much while armed?"
"Only around murderers."
The tunnel went quiet again. Tasha's shoulders tightened slightly.
We descended another level. The emergency lights flickered harder here. Half the corridor was dead dark. Tasha slowed near an old transit marker painted onto the wall. "Twenty more minutes," she said. "Then we're outside the security grid."
Matt stopped again. This time he didn't move. "I'm not doing this. I don't trust you."
Nobody answered immediately. He looked directly at me. "Garron's out there right now while we're having family therapy with the people who ruined our lives."
"Matt—"
"No." He pointed toward Orin. "This guy leaves clues around like a psychopath." Then at Tasha. "She locks you in cells after sleeping with you." He looked back at me. "And somehow I'm the unreasonable one?"
Tasha folded her arms tighter. "You done?" she asked quietly.
"No actually, I'm fucking inspired tonight."
"Matt."
He ignored me completely. "You trust them. Fine. I don't."
"You don't even know what's happening yet," Tasha said.
"That's because nobody here answers a damn question directly."
Orin leaned against the wall. "You're emotional."
Matt laughed once. "And you're lucky I'm not more emotional."
For a second I genuinely thought he might shoot him. Instead Matt looked at me again. "I'm finding Garron."
"You don't know where he is."
"I'll figure it out."
"And for the record, I don't trust them." I said.
"Great!"
He turned around and walked back into the dark tunnel alone.
Tasha watched him disappear. "He'll come back angry," she muttered.
"He already left angry," I said.
Orin pushed himself off the wall. "Come on."
The station sat beneath three inactive transit sectors. Old maintenance rails covered the floor. Half the lights didn't work. The room itself was small. One table, four chairs, stacked supply crates, a terminal running from a private relay battery. No personal items. No signs somebody actually lived there except a folded blanket shoved into the corner beside an old kettle.
Tasha walked straight toward the sink and washed dirt from her hands. I sat down across from Orin. For a while nobody said anything.
Then Orin spoke. "The riot wasn't spontaneous."
I leaned back slightly. "People looked angry enough to me."
"They are angry."
"Then what are you saying?"
He tapped two fingers against the table slowly. "Somebody pushed it."
The terminal behind him flickered once. Static crossed the screen for half a second before stabilizing again. Tasha glanced at it immediately, but Orin ignored it.
Orin pulled old transit records onto the terminal. Numbers rolled across the screen in red columns. "Three months ago," he said, "oxygen levels dropped one percent. Mining quotas. Security pressure."
"That's not exactly new."
"No, but coordinated escalation is."
"By who?"
"M.O.M.," Orin said. "The ones you work for. And funny enough, the Cube answers to them now.”
Tasha dried her hands slowly beside the sink. Orin continued. "A destabilized Moon justifies intervention. Security deployments. Emergency resource control. Military oversight." His eyes lifted toward mine. "People surrender freedoms fast when they're afraid."
The lights flickered again. This time longer. Tasha immediately looked toward the door.
"Power fluctuation?" I asked.
"No," Orin muttered.
He stood and crossed to the terminal. The screen filled briefly with static before a security feed of people running in the streets appeared for less than a second before it vanished.
Orin swore under his breath.
"What was that?"
"They're locking sectors down already."
Tasha went by him. "That's too fast."
"I know."
She crossed the room immediately. "Somebody planned this." Orin leaned back. Neither of them spoke for a second.
“Are you two buddies now? Cause last time I checked you hated the F.L.A, and you,” I said pointing at her, “hated the police.”
“No,” Tasha said. “We just have similar interests in this one issue.”
"Garron found something," Orin finally said, coming back toward the table.
"What?"
Orin hesitated while Tasha jumped in to answer. "He found shipment reroutes." Orin looked irritated as she spoke. "Reroutes?" I asked.
"Outer-ring conflict zones," she said quietly. "Places where Earth personnel kept getting attacked."
"Those attacks weren't random," Orin added.
"Okay? So what was it?"
Neither answered immediately. That was the first real moment I stopped trusting their answers again.
"Manufactured," Orin finally said.
The room went quiet. I looked between both of them. "By who?"
"Stop being stupid," Tasha said too quickly. Orin looked at her.
Then Tasha spoke again. "If Garron releases what he found publicly, Earth cracks down completely."
"How?"
"Martial law. Transport control. Military sectors." She folded her arms tightly. "The Moon becomes occupied territory officially instead of unofficially."
I rubbed my forehead. "You knew this before today?"
"Yes."
"And you waited until now to tell me?"
"We needed to know whose side you were on first."
"My side?" I stood up.
"Yes."
I stepped closer to the table. "You dragged us into riots, and security lockdowns because you wanted to test me?"
"Not exactly," Orin said calmly. "But know what happened back then."
My jaw tightened.
“More than you think.”
I turned around and closed my eyes. I couldn't bear to see two of the people I used to care about and had betrayed me were in the same room. The next second I opened my eye-ring, searching for surveillance footage. The corridor was empty, apart from the drones hovering over the look for anyone still there, or finding the attacker.
“You haven't looked at me properly this whole time,” Tasha said walking closer.
I turned the chair towards her. “Do you blame me?”
“Sure they have enough info to control you, but not enough to destroy you.”
I rested my head on my hands. “Tasha, I really don't—” Three loud knocks hit the outer door. Everyone moved instantly. Tasha drew first as Orin killed the lights.
Matt's voice came through the darkness. "Open the damn door before I bleed all over your secret revolution bunker." I checked the time on my green antique watch. Matt was gone for a little over thirty minutes.
Tasha immediately unlocked it. Matt stumbled inside breathing hard. Blood covered his sleeve. And Garron collapsed through the doorway beside him. Garron hit the floor hard enough to grunt.
Tasha stared at Matt. "What the fuck?"
Matt slammed the door shut behind him. "Haruki happened."
Tasha's eyes opened wildly. Grabbing Matt's collars. "Where is he?"
"Alive," Matt said, his gun coming up between them without him seeming to think about it.
"You shot him?"
"I shot near him."
"You missed?"
"I said near!"
Orin folded his arms slowly. "Okay, get over it."
Garron coughed blood onto the metal grating. He looked terrible. One eye swollen shut, his lip split and his left leg wrapped badly with a leaking field dressing. Tasha immediately crouched beside him.
"Easy," she muttered.
Garron grabbed her wrist weakly. "Don't." She froze. He looked toward Orin. Then toward me. Recognition hit his face instantly.
"Nice watch." Garron whispered.
The room went still. I frowned slightly. "What about it?"
Garron laughed weakly through blood. "This just keeps getting worse."
Matt looked between us. "The hell does that mean?"
Garron ignored him. His eyes stayed locked on mine. His moustache had grown out of shape, covering the edge of his upper lip. "You really don't know yet?"
"Know what?"
Orin cut in hard. "Enough." That was the first time any emotion entered his voice. Garron smiled despite the blood running from his mouth. "There he is," he muttered. "Finally."
"Can somebody explain literally anything tonight?" Matt said, pointing his gun between Tasha and Orin with an irritated face.
"Not now," Orin snapped. Even Matt looked surprised.
Then Matt turned toward me. "Call Sera."
Tasha stood immediately. "No."
"Sorry, but you aren't in control here." Matt said.
"There's always another choice."
"Not anymore."
Garron laughed again quietly from the floor. "You still think this ends with a simple arrest this time?"
I moved toward the terminal slowly. Tasha stepped between me and it.
"Da Vinci..."
The first time she'd said my name since I was in that cell. A ring of tears gathered in her brown eyes. "If you call her," she said quietly, "this becomes real."
Matt scoffed. "Pretty sure the riots and sniper fire already made it real."
Her eyes stayed on me. "You don't know what she will do with him.”
I held her gaze as I drew my pistol. Her eyes shifted to the gun, as my hands barely trembled. She stood aside, and I activated the terminal. The line connected almost immediately. Sera's voice came through.
"You found him?"
Matt answered first. "Yeah."
A pause. Then: "Alive?"
Garron started laughing quietly again before any of us answered. Not normal laughter. Tired laughter. The kind people make when the ending finally reaches them.
"Yes," I said finally.
Sera exhaled softly through the comm. "Good."
Tasha turned toward the wall, while Matt had his gun aimed at her.
"Bring him to the eastern processing hub seven in four hours."
Matt folded his arms. "And after that?"
"Moonlander execution confirmed upon transfer." The line went silent.
The terminal hummed quietly, and somewhere above us metal groaned through the station walls. Nobody moved. Garron closed his eyes. Matt's grip loosened around his gun. Tasha turned away immediately and pressed her hand against the edge of the terminal hard enough for her knuckles to pale.
Then Garron opened his eyes again and turned his head at me.
"And you still don't understand who you are," he whispered.