Awake

Chapter Thirty-Six - Downstairs Again

"You know," Nigs said, thoughtfully, "that's not as helpful as it might be."

Carmen shrugged. "It's something, isn't it? We know what to do! If we can find this key card, we can open the door!"

"How are you going to find a key card to a secret door in a place like this?" Kevin gestured. "It could be anywhere."

"We'll deal with that later," Carmen said, dismissively. "Right now, I think what we want to do most is get back to the others and tell them what's going on."

It seemed strange to think that the rest of their espionage mission were all downstairs with no idea what was going on. They didn't know about the people up here, about Kevin or Pippa, about the door, about the upstairs at all. They didn't even know if Carmen and Nigs were alright.

"Yes," Nigs sighed, reluctantly. "We should go back. Before they worry about us."

"All those stairs again," Carmen groaned. "All the way down. It would be quicker just to fall and end everything."

"But you don't have to go back that way," Kevin looked surprised. "You can't, anyway. It's far too dangerous to try and climb those stairs now Nigs's has broken them."

"It wasn't my fault!"

"Nevertheless, they are broken. Nobody uses them anyway. That's why they're in such poor condition."

"Then how are we going to get back?" Carmen demanded. "I trust you have a brilliant suggestion?"

"You come with us," Kevin shrugged. "We're on nightshift this week. Keep your heads down when we're counted through and then you can slip off back to your cells and no one will be any the wiser."

For a moment Carmen stared at him with her mouth hanging slightly open.

"That plan," she said, finally, "is so simple and obvious that I feel like an idiot for not noticing it."

Kevin inclined his head modestly. "Well, you don't know how the nightshift works."

"Even so." Carmen stretched until the joints in her shoulders cracked. "Oh, I want to sleep in a real bed again!"

"So how long will it take us to get back?" Nigs asked, hopefully. "Please don't tell me we have to go the same way we came."

Kevin shook his head. "It should be shorter. We could make it back by this evening."

"Then we'd better get going," Carmen linked her arms through each of theirs. "Shall we dance?"

"You seem happy," Nigs noted as they half-skipped along the corridor.

"Let's go for...exhilarated," Carmen laughed. "This mission has been a success! We have achieved! Dance with me, smuggler!"

While each had grace and balance, neither knew what to do with it. They shuffled in an attempted foxtrot, until Nigs couldn't keep his balance for laughing and Kevin was leaning up against the wall watching them, eyes glinting.

Carmen kept on humming the sailor's jig she knew, dropping her dying partner and seizing Kevin's hands.

"Waltz with me!" she commanded, while Nigs bent double to catch his breath.

Kevin could dance. He twirled Carmen around the corridor while she sang the only waltz she knew, almost in key but not quite. She threw back her head as she danced, her throat standing out as she laughed. In some inexplicable way, she felt that this was where she wanted to be.

Ebb lay back and stared in the dark up at the ceiling and thought about Sandy. He was trying to analyse the events of last night but he didn't have an analytical brain. The facts were relatively simple: Sandy had kissed him and lied about it, Ebb had said it was a shame it hadn't been real, they had sat there for hours talking. But the weight behind everything, all the implications it was tied up in, were too complicated for him.