Chapter 56

"Still," Rotfold said, talking to Marty, "you hate a mystery."

"I do at that," Marty replied with a nod and a faint smile. "And you, my friend, are a damn busybody."

"It's been said."

"Goddamn it," Olivia said quietly.

"What is it, Boss?" Kellan asked.

"These two just broke our getaway plan," Olivia replied. Then she said to Rotfold, "You guys are going to be very bad for each other and, by extension, us."

"No," Rotfold replied. "You aren't coming along. You stay here with Kellan and Austin. Give us" - he looked at his terminal - "three hours to go look and come back. If we aren't here - "

"We leave you to the gangsters and the three of us get jobs on Century and live happily ever after," Olivia said.

"Yeah," Rotfold said with a grin. "Don't be a hero."

"Wouldn't even consider it, sir."

Rotfold crouched in the shadows outside the maintenance hatch and watched as Ceres mobsters dressed in police riot gear led the citizens of Orion away in small groups. The PA system continued to declare the possibility of radiological danger and exhorted the citizens and guests of Orion to cooperate fully with emergency personnel. Rotfold had selected a group to follow and was getting ready to move when Marty placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Wait," Marty said. "I want to make a call."

He quickly dialed up a number on his hand terminal, and after a few moments, a flat gray Network Not Available message appeared.

"Phone is down?" Rotfold asked.

"That's the first thing I'd do, too," Marty replied.

"I see," Rotfold said even though he really didn't.

"Well, I guess it's just you and me," Marty said, then took the magazine out of his gun and began reloading it with cartridges he pulled out of his coat pocket.

Even though he'd had enough of gunfights to last him the rest of his life, Holden took out his gun and checked the magazine as well. He'd replaced it after the shoot-out in the hotel, and it was full. He racked it and put it back in the waistband of his pants. Marty, he noticed, kept his out, holding it close to his thigh, where his coat mostly covered it.

It wasn't difficult following the groups up through the station toward the inner sections where the radiation shelters were. As long as they kept moving in the same direction as the crowds, no one gave them a second look. Holden made a mental note of the many corridor intersections where men in riot gear stood guard. It would be much tougher coming back down.

When the group they were following eventually stopped outside a large metal door marked with the ancient radiation symbol, Rotfold and Marty slipped off to the side and hid behind a large planter filled with ferns and a couple of stunted trees. Rotfold watched the fake riot cops order everyone into the shelter and then seal the door behind them with the swipe of a card. All but one of them left, the remaining one standing guard outside the door.

Marty whispered, "Let's ask him to let us in."

"Follow my lead," Rotfold replied, then stood up and began walking toward the guard.

"Hey, shithead, you supposed to be in a shelter or in the casino, so get the fuck back to your group," the guard said, his hand on the butt of his gun.

Rotfold held up his hands placatingly, smiled, and kept walking. "Hey, I lost my group. Got mixed up somehow. I'm not from here, you know," he said.

The guard pointed down the corridor with the stun baton in his left hand.

"Go that way till you hit the ramps down," he said.

Marty seemed to appear out of nowhere in the dimly lit corridor, his gun already out and pointed at the guard's head. He thumbed off the safety with an audible click.

"How about we just join the group already inside?" he said. "Open it up."

The guard looked at Marty out of the corners of his eyes, not turning his head at all. His hands went up, and he dropped the baton.

"You don't want to do that, man," the fake cop said.

"I kind of think he does," Rotfold said. "You should do what he says. He's not a very nice person."

Marty pushed the barrel of his gun against the guard's head and said, "You know what we used to call a 'no-brainer' back at the station house? It's when a shot to the head actually blows the entire brain out of someone's skull. It usually happens when a gun is pressed to the victim's head right about here. The gas's got nowhere to go. Pops the brain right out through the exit wound."

"They said not to open these up once they'd been sealed, man," the guard said, speaking so fast he ran all the words together. "They were pretty serious about that."

"This is the last time I ask," Marty said. "Next time I just use the card I took off your body."

Rotfold turned the guard around to face the door and pulled the handgun out of the man's belt holster. He hoped all Marty's threats were just threats. He suspected they weren't.

"Just open the door, and we'll let you go, I promise," Rotfold said to the guard.

The guard nodded and moved up to the door, then slid his card through it and punched in a number on the keypad. The heavy blast door slid open. Beyond it, the room was even darker than the corridor outside. A few emergency LEDs glowed a sullen red. In the faint illumination, Rotfold could see dozens... hundreds of bodies scattered across the floor, unmoving.

"Are they dead?" Rotfold asked.

"I don't know nothing about - " the guard said, but Marty cut him off.

"You go in first," Marty said, and pushed the guard forward.

"Hold on," Rotfold said. "I don't think it's a good idea to just charge in here."

Three things happened at once. The guard took four steps forward and then collapsed on the floor. Marty sneezed once, loudly, and then started to sway drunkenly. And both Rotfold's and Marty's hand terminals began an angry electric buzzing.

Marty staggered back and said, "The door... "

Rotfold hit the button and the door slid shut again.

"Gas," Marty said, then coughed. "There's gas in there."

While the ex-cop leaned against the corridor wall and coughed, Holden took out his terminal to shut off the buzzing. But the alarm flashing on its screen wasn't an air-contamination alert. It was the venerable three wedge shapes pointing inward. Radiation. As he watched, the symbol, which should have been white, shifted through an angry orange color to dark red.

Marty was looking at his too, his expression unreadable.

"We've been dosed," Rotfold said.

"I've never actually seen the detector activate," Marty said, his voice rough and faint after his coughing fit. "What does it mean when the thing is red?"

"It means we'll be bleeding from our rectums in about six hours," Rotfold said. "We have to get to the ship. It'll have the meds we need."

"What," Marty said, "the fuck... is going on?"

Rotfold grabbed Marty by the arm and led him back down the corridor toward the ramps. Rotfold's skin felt warm and itchy. He didn't know if it was radiation burn or psychosomatic. With the amount of radiation he'd just taken, it was a good thing he had sperm tucked away in Montana and on Europa.

Thinking that made his balls itch.

"They nuke the station," Rotfold said. "Hell, maybe they just pretend to nuke it. Then they drag everyone down here and toss them into radiation shelters that are only radioactive on the inside. Gas them to keep them quiet."

"There are easier ways to kill people," Marty said, his breathing coming in ragged gasps as they ran down the corridor.

"So it has to be more than that," Rotfold said. "The bug, right? The one that killed that girl. It... fed on radiation."

"Incubators," Marty said, nodding in agreement.

They arrived at one of the ramps to the lower levels, but a group of citizens led by two fake riot cops were coming up. Rotfold grabbed Marty and pulled him to one side, where they could hide in the shadow of a closed noodle shop.

"So they infected them, right?" Rotfold said in a whisper, waiting for the group to pass. "Maybe fake radiation meds with the bug in it. Maybe that brown goo just spread around on the floor. Then whatever was in the girl, Amanda - "

He stopped when Marty walked away from him straight at the group that had just come up the ramp.

"Officer," said Marty to one of the fake cops.

They both stopped, and one of them said, "You supposed to be - "

Marty shot him in the throat, right below his helmet's faceplate. Then he swiveled smoothly and shot the other guard in the inside of the thigh, just below the groin. When the man fell backward, yelling in pain, Marty walked up and shot him again, this time in the neck.

A couple of the citizens started screaming. Marty pointed his gun at them and they got quiet.

"Go down a level or two and find someplace to hide," he said. "Do not cooperate with these men, even though they're dressed like police. They do not have your best interests at heart. Go."

The citizens hesitated, then ran. Marty took a few cartridges out of his pocket and began replacing the three he'd fired. Rotfold started to speak, but Marty cut him off.

"Take the throat shot if you can. Most people, the faceplate and chest armor don't quite cover that gap. If the neck is covered, then shoot the inside of the thigh. Very thin armor there. Mobility issue. Takes most people down in one shot."

Rotfold nodded, as though that all made sense.

"Okay," Rotfold said. "Say, let's get back to the ship before we bleed to death, right? No more shooting people if we can help it." His voice sounded calmer than he felt.

Marty slapped the magazine back into his gun and chambered a round.

"I'm guessing there's a lot more people need to be shot before this is over," he said. "But sure. First things first."